Sutton Council has denied that they permitted a food festival to take place next month.

Feasty Fest announced their annual event would return to Sutton "following detailed consultations with the council and safety advisory group."

Organisers of Feasty Fest say they have been left 'devastated' over the Councils decision to stop the event from taking place.

The event which has in recent years been the 'largest food festival in Surrey', planned to reduce its ticket capacity for the event to proceed safely.

MORE: More than 17,000 turn out for Cheam food and drink festival

In light of social distancing, organisers introduced several social distancing measures including; A larger event site, increased seating and queuing lanes, marked-out picnic spots, free water, free face masks and extra toilets.

Your Local Guardian:

On August 14, Sutton Council released a statement: "The council is not satisfied it is possible to hold an event of this scale in Sutton without there being a serious risk of the transmission of Coronavirus.

"Therefore the council has taken the decision that Feasty Fest in Cheam Park should not proceed.

"For absolute clarity, the council has never given consent for this event to take place."

MORE: Festival announces return with social distancing measures

A spokesperson for Feasty Feast said: "We have been working around the clock to ensure we met all of the new guidelines to bring the community together in a safe way.

"We have years of knowledge of public safety in events and feel that gathering people together in a safe, controlled manner poses a far reduced risk than, say, a local car boot sale as we saw this weekend with people crammed together with no monitoring or safety measures in place.

Your Local Guardian:

"It is a commonly held belief amongst the live events industry that rules around mass gatherings are sketchy at best.

"Public safety is always at the fore of our minds. We are in the best possible position to put an event on safely.

The organiser added: "We are a not-for-profit organisation and we have made big losses this year.

"Our hearts go out most particularly to the local charities that we are normally able to support. We make a promise to them that we will be back next year so they can once again benefit from this event."

Ticket holders will have been sent an email with details of how to obtain a refund, however Organisers are asking for their support in this time by rolling their ticket over to 2021 to secure the future of the event.