WATER power could be harnessed to end a South Lakeland arts centre’s funding drought.

Managers of Farfield Mill, Sedbergh, hope a hydro-electric project will help them generate power, while earning £40,000 a year from the thundering waters of the River Clough.

The arts and heritage centre welcomes 25,000 visitors a year and is home to 20 artists whose livelihoods depend on the Victorian building.

Farfield trustee Anne Pierson said electricity generated by the proposed £400,000 hydro project could be sold back to the national grid and would create cash to act as a lifelife for the organisation.

Mrs Pierson said: “Every penny counts here.

“This money would ensure we don’t have to charge more for admission or increase prices in our cafe. Instead we could focus on developing our education programmes and working more with schools.

“Farfield is already a cultural beacon of best practice, if we can create our own funding we can become more financially secure and increase our self-sufficiency too.”

Richard Thomas, a founding trustee at Farfield Mill, who campaigned for its restoration from a derelict building to an arts and heritage centre in 2001, put forward the hydro plans.

A final location for the project has not yet been finalised and plans are yet to be considered by Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority, but an initial feasibility study was carried out by Kendal-based Inter Hydro Technology.

The estimated cost of running the mill, which has 20 resident artists and four storeys of exhibition space, is about £150,000 a year.

This year the centre ran with the support of grants worth more than £47,000, from South Lakeland District Council, the Arts Council, the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation and Cumbria County Council.