Westmorland and Furness Council have spoken out over claim made over funding by Winter the Droving Organisers saying it’s making a £35K contribution to Eden Arts this year.
Eden Arts who organise the Penrith Winter Droving have said in a statement that they received news that Westmorland and Furness Council have withdrawn the usual local authority funding of the event, creating financial problems and making the event’s future extremely uncertain beyond 2024.
Eden Arts claim that without the funding from Westmorland and Furness Council, The Winter Droving will not go ahead in 2025 in Penrith.
Eden Arts say they now face a loss of around £30k should the council insist on proceeding without funding the event in 2024.
“We are a charity, we can't sustain losses like that. But if this is to prove to be the last one, let's make it the best yet”, says Adrian, “we are very shocked to be in this position as everyone loves the Droving and we have built it up so carefully and it is an amazing success, it feels like an additional Christmas, it has felt inevitable that the council would back it and we were led to believe that they would, and now this. However if it is to be the last one in Penrith we are determined to make it a great one.”
A spokesperson for Westmorland and Furness Council said: “Westmorland and Furness Council supports Eden Arts and values its work contributing to arts and cultural activities in the Eden area.
“The council, and its predecessor Eden District Council, has provided significant funding support to Eden Arts over many years.”
“In the current 2024/25 financial year the council has maintained the core funding to Eden Arts of £20,000 and this has not been reduced.”
“In addition, a one-off uplift payment of £5,000 has been allocated that the council suggested could go towards Winter Droving, along with a National Portfolio Organisation (NPO) contribution of £10,000, making a total funding contribution from Westmorland and Furness Council of £35,000 in the current financial year.”
“Last year, in addition to the core funding and NPO contribution, Eden Arts were awarded a one-off payment of £25,000 towards the costs of Winter Droving 2023, from the council’s Culture Recovery Support Fund.”
“The Culture Support Recovery Fund was set up to help organisations in Westmorland and Furness with their continued delivery of arts and cultural activities and to ease the combined impacts of the cost of living crisis, energy price increases and ongoing post-pandemic recovery.”
“In total the council awarded £250,000 under the Culture Recovery Support Fund to 11 organisations across Westmorland and Furness, to help maintain the area’s cultural infrastructure.”
“The council has repeatedly made clear that this was never intended to be recurring funding and should not be considered as such, and that organisations receiving help from the Culture Recovery Support Fund should be mindful of this when planning future programmes.”
“It would therefore be incorrect to suggest that specific funding for Winter Droving has been ‘cut’ from this year, as it was never allocated for 2024/25.”
“Beyond the £35,000 funding that has already been allocated to Eden Arts for 2024/25, the council does not have money budgeted this year to cover any additional requests for the Winter Droving Festival.”
“The council has already contacted Eden Arts to explain this and has suggested it is happy to be flexible around the use of the £35,000 funding if Eden Arts wishes to use some of that money towards the cost of this year’s Winter Droving Festival.’’
The Winter Droving also receives thousands in grant and sponsorship from organisations including Penrith Town Council, Penrith BiD, The idol.com, AST and The Leo Group who provide tens of thousands each year to fund the event in Penrith.
Alongside the core funding provided to a Eden Arts by Westmorland and Furness Council the organisation has also had the old fire station in Penrith as its HQ in an arrangement spanning back to the former Cumbria County Council who owned the building.
Eden Arts claim the Winter Droving now in its 13th year attracts an annual crowd of around 25,000 people to Penrith boosting the local economy by around £2 million each year.
It’s understood that Eden Arts could relocate to Cumberland and take the Winter Droving up the M6 to Carlisle in the future if it’s unable to get more funding from Westmorland and Furness Council for the event.
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