The famous Brixton Splash festival has been cancelled this year due to the Lambeth Council stating it costs too much to clean up afterwards.

The music festival which was founded in 2005 and is usually held around Jamaican Independence Day has attracted up to 15,000 people in recent years, causing roads to be closed in its presence.

The Brixton Splash is a non-profit community organisation which provides festival goers a free, street carnival in the heart of Brixton. It is known as a carnival that is ‘led by the community for the community.’

During the rest of the year, the organisation runs an outreach programme that helps the disadvantaged people of the Brixton community. The original strapline for the Splash event is ‘From infamous to famous’.

Many of the leaders of this organisation are of Afro-Caribbean heritage and are inspired by a similar street party that was held in the same location in 2003 to celebrate the Queens Golden Jubilee.

In honour of the festivals Caribbean roots, each year Brixton Splash has a theme to promote and celebrate the afro Caribbean history and culture.

But this year Lambeth Council have refused the application for the event to be held, saying that the 2015 event drew in a wide number of complaints from residents living locally.

The council also stated that the cost of policing and cleaning up after the event was too much, nearing hundreds of thousands of pounds.

An avid Splash goer spoke out about the news saying “It’s such a shame, the festival gave the community an amazing reason to get together and celebrate their roots. It’ll definitely be missed this year.”

The founder of the festival, Ros Griffiths, joined Lambeth Council to appeal for more people to get involved to ensure that it can go ahead in 2017.

She said “The community needs to reclaim this as a celebration of Brixton, not a free-for-all that creates chaos, mess and unease.”