ORGANISERS of the Glastonbury Festival have moved to curb any fundraising by hunts providing stewards for the event.

The move comes after the Mendip Farmers Hunt accounts for 2020/2021 showed that in 2019/2020, the hunt received £4,500 from the festival.

It is understood the money came from providing stewards for the event, which welcomes more than 200,000 to Worthy Farm in Pilton, with stewards handing their fees to the group.

Now, the festival has moved to ban the hunt from fundraising through activities on the Pilton site, telling ITV News it is “absolutely not pro-hunting”.

The minutes were revealed by anti-badger cull organisation Innocent Badger and the festival claim they had no idea the hunt had been using their event to raise much needed funds, ITV News reported.

Thousands of stewards are employed during the festival and are sourced from a variety of groups, including county carnival clubs.

A spokesperson for Glastonbury said: "Glastonbury Festival is absolutely not pro-hunting, and we do not - and would not - donate directly to any hunts.

"It has been brought to our attention that a group of these stewards represented a local hunt.

"We can confirm that this group will not be stewarding at Glastonbury in the future, and that we have fully vetted our list of stewarding groups to ensure that there are no other hunting organisations represented on it."