Notting Hill Carnival organisers will take on responsibilities previously handled by the Metropolitan Police after London’s mayor announced nearly £5m in additional funding ahead of this summer’s event.
The grant of £4.66m, confirmed by Sir Sadiq Khan, follows an independent review into crowd safety at the annual celebration of Caribbean culture — one of the largest street festivals in the world. According to City Hall, the event contributes close to £400m to the local economy each year.
Ian Comfort, chair of Notting Hill Carnival Ltd, said the funding would allow the organisation to assume duties that have historically fallen to the Met, freeing officers to concentrate on core policing responsibilities during the three-day event. He described the mayor’s support as enabling a “safe, spectacular and sustainable carnival.”
Mr Comfort also marked the significance of this year’s milestone, recalling the festival’s origins in September 1966, when Rhaune Laslett established it as a means of bringing communities together in a neighbourhood defined at the time by racial tension and social hardship. From those beginnings, he said, it had grown into a global cultural institution.
The funding has drawn criticism from the City Hall Conservative group, whose leader Susan Hall argued the money would have been better directed elsewhere — pointing to the threatened closure of two police counters in Kensington and Chelsea as an example of competing priorities. She described the grant as a “blank cheque” and said structural reform, rather than additional funding, was what was needed to address safety risks at the event.
Sir Sadiq Khan said the carnival’s growing scale had made improvements to safety and security essential. The funding, he said, was intended to ensure the event could continue to take place as part of efforts to build a better London.
Notting Hill Carnival is scheduled to run from 29 to 31 August.
