A WINCHESTER festival has warned revellers to clean up after themselves or risk the major event not returning.

Boomtown Fair, held on the Matterley Estate, issued the warning as it joined called to stop retailers selling ‘single-use’ tents.

A spokesman took to the festival’s Twitter account to urge festival-goers at summer event to take their tents home with them.

The spokesman said: “We are simply not willing to run the festival in the future unless this radically changes. Please, please share this really important message for the future of festivals... and the future of the planet.

“We’ve all seen the absolute devastation left at the end of the festival; broken plastic airbeds, discarded camping chairs and cheap flooded tents that have only been used once... it’s absolutely heartbreaking.

“Unfortunately, landfill is exactly where most of this will go. Tents are multi-material so practically impossible to recycle - the average tent is the equivalent of 8750 plastic straws or 250 plastic pint cups.

“We’re calling on Boomtown citizens to #TakeYourTentHome.”

The move by festival organisers has been supported on the social networking website. One user called ‘Dawnie’ said: “I’m so glad to see festivals trying to do something about this.”

Another, Anne-Marie Fern, said: “Well done @BoomtownFair for being the first to say that if punters don’t take their tents home they will stop putting on the festival. We have to reduce the environmental impact of festivals NOW.”

The move comes less than a month after plans to give permanent permission to the music festival were rebuffed by councillors in favour of a temporary extension.

As previously reported, approval to use Matterley Estate, near Winchester, for the festival had been due to expire at the end of this year, before the South Downs National Park planning committee unanimously granted the extension in mid April.

The decision now means the site can host the annual 65,000-capacity festival, as well the Tough Mudder obstacle course, on the Matterley Estate until the end of 2024.

Speaking after the decision, Matterley Estate owner Peveril Bruce said: “We will be working with the national park over the next six years to try to convince them there’s nothing to fear. We want to look after Matterley Estate.

“I’m not sure what it is everybody is worried about.”

This year’s festival is set to run between August 7 and August 12. Headliners include alternative hip hop artists The Streets and punk rock duo, Slaves.