Sadiq Khan has backed Scotland Yard fears about safety at the Notting Hill Carnival, warning of the possibility of a Hillsborough stadium-style “major catastrophe” at the annual two-day August bank holiday event, said to be the largest street party in Europe.
The Mayor’s comments, coming after Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Matt Twist told the London Assembly’s police and crime committee earlier this week that his chief concerns about the event were “crowd density and the potential for a mass casualty event”, will bolster calls to overhaul the carnival, which now attracts an estimated one million visitors or more to the residential streets of W11.
The carnival had become a “victim of its own success” and a “proper conversation” with its organisers was now needed, Khan told Assembly members (AMs) at yesterday’s regular Mayor’s Question Time. “You’ve got a finite space and more and more people wanting to come. It is really important for the organisers to listen to the concerns.”
Labour AM Unmesh Desai (pictured), who attended the event this year, told the meeting that while the policing operation had been “excellent”, the management of the event “left a lot to be desired”, with not enough toilets and insufficient stewarding. “The status quo is not an option,” he said.
The Assembly had warned of the risks of overcrowding at the carnival as far back as 2017, he said, with a report recommending that its organisation should be strengthened and changes to its parade route and the location of various elements of the festivities considered. “Those recommendations still stand,” Desai added.
He was backed by Tory AM Keith Prince. “I am a big believer in the carnival and everything it represents, and I think it should carry on. But should we look at alternative locations?” he asked the Mayor.
Previous suggestions for relocating the event, perhaps to nearby Hyde Park, had not been taken forward, Khan said, with continuing recognition of the carnival’s deep roots in the Notting Hill area. But he would ensure that AMs’ concerns were raised at forthcoming debriefing sessions with the organisers and statutory agencies, he said.
Carnival organisers told the BBC they had not had the resources to compensate for fewer police officers this year, and said they were working with partners to secure more stewarding for future events. Plans for this year’s event had been reviewed by relevant agencies and had not been declared unsafe, they added.
Despite the Assembly’s praise for the Met’s handling of the 2024 carnival, Khan nevertheless faced a barrage of criticism from AMs over the last month’s Inspector of Constabulary report which found the service falling short in almost all areas scrutinised, including preventing and investigating crime.
There were some positive points, Khan said: homicide rates and the numbers of under-25s injured in knife attacks were down, and the figures for trust and confidence in the Met were stabilising. And the report should also be seen in the context of the “consequences of austerity” in the form of £1 billion taken out of Met budgets under the previous government.
The report was nevertheless a “sober read”, he conceded. “On the basic principles, keeping the peace and preventing crime – the police need to make huge progress.” The increasing pressures of policing the city, he added, meant “our officers, frankly, are knackered”.
But Scotland Yard’s response, the “New Met for London” plan, was now in place, he said. “The inspection is a snapshot taken before that plan has had a chance to be put into action. Over the course of the next few months you will see those plans achieved, and we are hoping that will lead to the changes that the HMI talks about.”
The plan includes a significant boost to neighbourhood policing, including a team of officers and police community support officers in every ward, and at least one round-the-clock front counter in every borough.
In addition, there are commitments to more effective use of data and technology, and to tackling the “cultural” issues of racism and misogyny identified in the Casey report, which followed the murder of Sarah Everard by a serving police officer.
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