It was probably bound to happen and the rumour mill was of course working into overdrive, but now the organisers behind Notting Hill Carnival, have announced that this year's event has now been cancelled.

After the COVID-19 pandemic cleared the entire summer's festival programme questions were raised over whether Notting Hill Carnival, which was slated to take place on August 30-31 (at least a month after the last festivals) would follow suite or whether we would have returned to normal by then.

It had been hoped that the virus would have been dealt with by August and that Carnival — which typically sees over two or three million attendees flock to West London every year — would be able to happen as a normal. A massive city-wide party like that would have been an uplifting end to the relentless barrage of tragedy and solitude we've been enduring, but alas it's not to be.

After the press had suggested that the government was considering lifting the lockdown, or at least loosening restrictions, it was starting to look hopeful for Carnival. However, those rumours were met with intense backlash by the public and the government has today announced that the lockdown will continue in its current form for at least three more weeks, most likely even more than that.

What's more is the current thinking is that the UK will continue to exercise some form or social distancing until at least the end of the year and that mass gatherings of any kind, even small gigs of a few dozen people, will be completely out of the question until 2021.

On a more positive note, the statement below says the Carnival organisers are working on an alternative to this year's Carnival, although details of what that could be are so far scarce. Another silver lining is that this gives the organisers even more time to make next year's Carnival bigger and better than ever. Hopefully by that point we won't have to worry about being in such close proximity to each other and daggering will be back on the table.

Read the organisers' full statement below.