THE future of Clitheroe Food Festival is secure for another year.

Figures released by Ribble Valley Council show the festival, which was run solely by the local authority this year, made a loss for the second year in a row.

Council bosses attributde much of that to a fall in sponsorship, which has plummeted from £27,900 in 2015 to £8,500 this year.

In 2016, the festival made the council more than £5,000 but last year, the festival cost £8,177 while this year it cost ran at a £2,660 deficit after income and expenditure was taken into account.

It had been expected to make a loss in the region of £15,000 because no sponsorship money had been budgeted for.

But at a community services meeting, councillors said they were delighted with the way the 2018 festival had gone and congratulated the head of cultural and leisure services, Mark Beveridge, on a job well done.

It was felt that the member working group that had been set up to help find sponsorship for the event should continue their work.

The committee agreed to the council staging the Clitheroe Food Festival in 2019 and asked the member working group again to work with officers in attracting sponsorship for next year’s event.