Councillors in the London borough of Lambeth are expected to grant planning permission at a meeting tomorrow evening giving the go ahead for Brockwell Live’s series of festivals to take place in Brockwell Park this summer.
That’s despite the council receiving nearly four hundred objections - more than three times the 128 people who expressed support - for the plan for the London park to be used as a festival venue once again.
It’s the first time organisers of the annual Brockwell Park festivals have had to formally apply for planning permission, because Lambeth Council previously used its powers under the Town And Country Planning Act to allow the events to go ahead without any formal planning process.
However, last year local residents group Protect Brockwell Park successfully raised tens of thousands of pounds in a crowdfunder to bring legal action against the council, arguing that it had unlawfully used those powers.
According to the Standard, as part of the formal planning process for this year’s events, 397 objections were formally raised, while 128 submissions supported the plan to stage five festivals as part of Brockwell Live 2026, including Field Day, Cross The Tracks, City Splash, Mighty Hoopla and Brockwell Bounce.
But planning officials have nevertheless recommended that the council’s planning committee allow the festivals to go ahead, arguing that - on balance - the “cultural, social and economic public benefits” of Brockwell Live outweigh any harms.
Last year Protect Brockwell Park successfully argued in court that Lambeth Council had misused its powers under the Town And Country Planning Act to allow Brockwell Live 2025 to go ahead without a formal planning process.
It pursued legal action after securing support through a sophisticated campaign via legal crowd funding platform Crowd Justice, and with hundreds of followers on WhatsApp and Instagram.
That legal action centred on how many days the park would be in use for the festivals. The council claimed it had followed the rules correctly when fast-tracking approval for the events, and when the high court disagreed, council officials simply amended and reissued the paperwork and said it was now compliant with the law.
That allowed the 2025 festivals to go ahead as planned, though the legal dispute between the council and Protect Brockwell Park continued in the courts. Until, that is, the local authority announced late last year that, for 2026, Brockwell Live would go through a formal planning process, allowing local residents to formally raise any objections.
Local residents who oppose the summer festivals usually insist that it’s the scale of the Brockwell Live programme that they object to, both in terms of how much of the park is blocked off for the ticketed events, and how many days the park is impacted for in total.
As the 2026 festival series has gone through the formal planning process, there has been much disagreement over how much of the park will actually be affected by this year’s Brockwell Live.
A report prepared by the council reckons no more than 26% of the park will be fenced off for the festivals. But, according to Brixton Buzz, both Protect Brockwell Park and Friends Of Brockwell Park claim that figure is misleading.
It reports that the local resident groups argue that “once fencing, security zones, crowd displacement and post-event ground damage are taken into account, the effective loss of usable space during peak summer months could be closer to 45-60%”.
Also critical of the plans is The Brixton Society, which has honed in on the fact that Brockwell Live 2026 will only include commercial ticketed events. Previously the festival season also included the council’s own community event, the Lambeth Country Show, which utilised infrastructure put in place for the commercial festivals. That is not taking place this year because of rising costs.
Supporters of Brockwell Live stress that - although the five festivals being planned are commercial and ticketed - they do together present a diverse mix of music and culture, aimed at a diverse mix of festival-goers. But opponents strongly disagree that the benefits outweigh the negatives, especially when locals don’t get a free country show as part of the proceedings.
All of this will be discussed at a meeting of the Lambeth Council planning committee tomorrow evening.