THE creator of Latitude festival has promised that the seventh instalment will include a few surprises.

The music and arts festival, which is held in Henham Park, near Southwold, returns on July 12-15, with tickets made available when the first line-up announcement takes place on Monday, March 5 at 7.15pm.

Festival creator and founder Melvin Benn said: 'What makes Latitude unique among festivals is not only its adventurous spirit, but more importantly its ability to give people the most diverse and exciting line up of arts and music performers appearing anywhere in the UK.

'In 2012 we'll continue to do what we've always done best, which is to bring the Latitude audience the highest calibre of acts from every platform that the arts can offer. We can promise more than a few surprises and bright young things among the Latitude favourites.'

Last year's festival included music headliners The National, Paolo Nutini and Suede.

This year is also to see the launch of the Tour de Latitude, a charity cycling event.

Organisers of the festival are encouraging people to sign up to cycle to the festival to raise money for charities Kenyan Orphan Project and Julie's Bicycle.

Participants will be able to cycle 113 miles from Hackey, 55 miles from Sudbury or 35 miles from Ipswich.

•This week it has also been announced that Norwich Arts Centre has teamed up with the festival to bring a new monthly live poetry night to the city.

It will be called the Latitude Poetry Club and will seek to bring to the buzz and atmosphere of the poetry tent to Norwich.

The event starts in May with opening headliner Simon Armitage, who has won The Sunday Times Author of the Year, a Forward Prize, a Lannan Award and an Ivor Novello Award.

The new monthly club will also be supported by Writers Centre Norwich and the national live literature agency 'Apples and Snakes'.

The opening night on Wednesday, May 23, will also feature Luke Wright as compere and support from Molly Naylor and Simon Mole.