15/09/2026
https://www.facebook.com/share/1PXhWiZcGJ/?mibextid=wwXIfr
We have tried not to get drawn into the very heated discussion around Winter Droving over the last few days.
But some of the comments and allegations have now become so personal that we have asked our staff not to look at Facebook over the weekend. Criticism of a decision is entirely legitimate. Personal abuse and unsupported allegations directed at the people who work here are not.
So, rather than argue comment by comment, we want to set out the basic facts clearly.
Winter Droving was created by Eden Arts and has been produced by us in Penrith for fourteen editions.
The vast majority of the funding for the event over those years has been raised by Eden Arts, principally from Arts Council England, amounting to hundreds of thousands of pounds brought into Penrith. There have also been long term sponsors who have contributed magnificently, the town should be grateful to them.
That national support remains strong. What has reduced is the local funding and sponsorship alongside it. Eden District Council previously contributed £15,000 a year directly to Winter Droving; that support did not continue in the same way after local government reorganisation. Sponsorship has also reduced, and some expected funding and sponsorship did not materialise last year.
Last year’s event was cancelled on the advice of an independent professional event safety expert. To ignore that advice would have been irresponsible, and we were devastated that months of work could not go ahead.
After the cancellation, Eden Arts honoured its commitments to artists, staff and suppliers and returned trader fees in full. Most of the funding and sponsorship that had been promised also held firm, but two sources did not honour their commitments. As a result, Eden Arts carried a loss of around £20,000.
Had those commitments been honoured, the financial position going into this year would have been very different, and Winter Droving could potentially have continued in Penrith.
This year we continued working to find a viable way of delivering Winter Droving.
The announcement came late because we kept trying until late. We have spent months trying to close the funding gap and make the Penrith event work.
Eventually our Board had to face a very simple fact:
If the income does not cover the cost of the event, somebody has to pay the difference. That cannot be left to Eden Arts again.
And if we are honest, we have been saying this for the last few years.
The funding model has been getting harder since local government reorganisation, when the £15,000 annual grant previously provided through Eden District Council was no longer continued in the same way. In 2024, the Cumberland and Westmorland Herald stepped in with £15,000 and effectively filled that gap for a year, which helped save the event.
We have also repeatedly tried to broaden the funding base ourselves through crowdfunding, public appeals, wristbands and donation requests at the event. If we are brutally honest, those efforts have raised only modest sums compared with what is needed to produce Winter Droving.
So this is not a sudden problem. It has been building for several years, and Eden Arts has been working throughout that time to keep finding ways to make the event happen.
For clarity, a viable Carlisle option only became deliverable very recently — less than two weeks before the public announcement. Arts Council England then agreed to transfer its £65,600 grant, allowing that national investment, the artists’ work and the event itself to remain in north Cumbria. Great Border City BID then made a quick decision to support the event as part of its programme for the city.
It is also worth noting that Eden Arts had approached Great Border City BID earlier in the year, in April, with the idea of a separate “sister” event to Winter Droving, but that was not taken forward at the time. It was only once it became clear that Winter Droving could not proceed in Penrith that Carlisle became a realistic and deliverable alternative.
So this was not a case of the event being “stolen” or of any improper arrangement. It was a last-minute solution that ensured the Arts Council funding was not lost altogether and that a major public event could still take place in north Cumbria.
We remain immensely proud of what we created in Penrith and hope Winter Droving can return.
But for that to happen, a sustainable local funding and sponsorship partnership needs to be rebuilt, and maybe that would have to include a reliable crowd funding or wristband system - though we believe that this would have to remain voluntary as some people simply can not afford an enforced cost.
That is what needs to happen, and that is what we have been trying to achieve for months (and years!) and we have conceded defeat perhaps too late, hence the late announcement.
We are genuinely sorry that we have not been able to make it work in Penrith this year. If the local funding and sponsorship had been there, Winter Droving would still be taking place in Penrith. It could have been events in both Carlisle and Penrith, sadly it is just Carlisle this year.
Anyone who genuinely wants to understand the decision, the funding position or the pressures behind it is very welcome to come and talk to us and meet the people behind Eden Arts. We are a small team, many of us young Cumbrians. Our door is open.
