Cllr Steve Cardownie, Festival and Events Champion for the City of Edinburgh Council said:
“Edinburgh is the Festival City and home to the world’s largest Summer and Winter Festival programmes. Edinburgh has rightly been acclaimed as the World’s Best place to celebrate New Year. Any suggestion that the street party might be cancelled in future years is both premature and highly speculative.

We are focused on delivering, yet again, the world's best winter festivals in 2007, and there is real political will within the Council’s Administration to retain and enhance our Winter Celebrations. We’ll do everything in our power to ensure these events are staged successfully.

Funding decisions for future years will follow The Scottish Government's Spending Review, which will be announced in November. We are confident that The Scottish Government recognises the importance of these iconic celebrations, which showcase Scotland globally, and the huge economic benefit they generate both for Edinburgh and the whole of the nation.”

Plans for this year's Christmas and Hogmanay celebrations in the city are well underway and issues of funding in no way threaten this year’s Edinburgh Winter Festivals (EWF) programme, Cllr Cardownie stressed.

“Edinburgh consistently leads the way in Christmas and Hogmanay celebrations – not just for the city but for Scotland, generating huge sums for the economy and attracting thousands of UK and international tourists.

Funding for the EWF itself comes from a variety of sources including the City of Edinburgh Council, The Scottish Government’s Cities Growth Fund, ticket sales and sponsorship. In fact, Edinburgh’s Christmas is largely self-funding from revenue from Winter Wonderland, the ice rink and the Christmas markets.

This year, securing sponsorship for Edinburgh’s Hogmanay has undoubtedly been more challenging – but not surprising given the cancellation last year and the competitive sponsorship market in general.

While we have not replaced last year's headline sponsor for the Street Party, it is important to note that this does not threaten the events programme in any way.

Our other sponsors, including Edinburgh Bicycle Co-operative, Radio Forth and Scottish & Newcastle are all back on board. We have always been aware that following a cancellation, potential new sponsors would be initially cautious about becoming involved with the event. However, we've had positive talks with many potential sponsors who will be watching this year's event with interest.

The imperative for us is to use this year’s event as a showcase of just how well Edinburgh can present itself and encourage a positive outcome for funding in future years.

Crucially, the Cities Growth fund, which provides around 30 per cent of funding for the EWF programme is not confirmed from 2008 onwards. This is beyond our control as it is tied to the Scottish Government setting out their priorities once they know what the UK Treasury Spending Review states. In the meantime the Council continues to lobby for continuation of funding to cover things currently funded by Cities Growth Fund either through a continuation of this fund or other mechanisms.

Clearly if we are facing a worst case scenario that this funding is no longer available, and no alternative source of funding can be identified, a refocusing of the EWF programme may be required. But it is to be hoped that it does not come to that.

Edinburgh’s Winter Festivals are a key element in Edinburgh’s distinctiveness, and EWF is second only to Edinburgh’s Festival Fringe in terms of reputation and the sheer numbers of people attracted to the city by the programme. These events are a vital part of the city’s festival offering and the single most important component of Edinburgh and Scotland’s tourism offer in December.

The Council is committed to supporting, developing and expanding the winter festivals to ensure that Edinburgh, the world's favourite Festival City, continues to lead the field.

In 14 years of the festival’s history, we have had twelve highly successful events and only two cancellations. While cancelling one of the country’s most iconic events is a bitter blow, the world expects that Edinburgh, as the capital city and the home of Hogmanay, should be celebrating the occasion as much as possible.

Last year we faced severe climatic conditions and we would have been entirely wrong to jeopardise the safety of artists and audience by allowing the event to go ahead. The weather is a fact of life which we clearly have no control over. However, year on year we have made modifications to stages and other improvements to infrastructure in the arena over the past few years to mitigate against all but the most severe climatic conditions.

An event on such a scale requires planning for a full twelve months in advance. In January, we review how the city will celebrate Hogmanay in the future. It is entirely inconceivable that Edinburgh would not lead the nation’s celebrations to mark the passing of the old year and the start of the new. Our challenge is to determine the scale of those celebrations.

While recognising that “the bells” will always be the focus for many people, we have created a four-day programme of events which we will continue to develop to ensure that Edinburgh retains its rightful place, on Hogmanay, alongside the world’s other great party cities.”