MORE still needs to be done to encourage all ethnic groups to feel like they belong in the city.

Saturday’s Multicultural Picnic in Cripplegate Park, organised by the city council and Fortis, was an excellent concept but unfortunately was overshadowed by the annual carnival.

Basia Ligas, a Polish expatriate who has lived in the UK for more than a decade, was the main driving force behind the picnic in her role as the council’s community cohesion officer.

She told me while many Asian ethnicities, like Bangladesh and Indian, have established communities in Worcester, many eastern European’s, for example, don’t.

There’s been an influx of Bulgarians and Romanians into the city since 2007 when those countries were given full EU membership, said Basia, but since the Brexit vote there’s been increased “uneasiness” towards ethnic minorities.

To say Leave voters are all racists is completely naive, but with figures showing an increase in racial hate crime since the vote, it is fair to say that many have used it as a free pass to openly discriminate.

I wrote a Fair Point a few months ago after witnessing a group of white Englishmen racially abusing a young black man on a train from Worcester to Birmingham.

I had naively thought that such open and aggressive forms of racism, done in such a persistent yet everyday manner, were long gone, especially here.

The city did a great job of standing up to the EDL protestors last summer and that should be built on by councils and residents recognising and actively supporting all minority groups, not just those of the Muslim faith.

Basia said the city council has been toying with the idea of a festival in Lowesmoor to promote the different cultures and foods there, which is a great idea.

Lowesmoor is arguably the most ethnically diverse part of the city, with a variety of foods on offer.

I consider myself to be someone who enjoys foods from across the globe but I found myself sampling foods from Poland, Romania and elsewhere that I’d never even heard of at the Multicultural Picnic.

Food is a great conversation starter, which was why Basia chose a picnic to promote a coming together of people born across the world who now live in Worcester and want to feel like they belong here.