17 July 2025, 09:46

By James Ford

The Notting Hill Carnival is getting more dangerous and more expensive to stage and police. It needs to change if it is to survive.

It will surprise no one to learn that large, live events are ripe for political controversy. Whilst a quarter of a million revellers gathered at Glastonbury to chant antisemitic hate slogans, the next major event controversy was already unfolding in London. In response to a begging letter from the organisers of the Notting Hill Carnival, the Mayor of London, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and the City of Westminster handed over £958,000 of taxpayers' money to fund extra crowd control at this year’s festival. In doing so, City Hall has missed an opportunity to demand urgent changes to how the carnival is organised in return.

It has been clear for a long time that the Notting Hill Carnival cannot continue as it has. What started as a modest but popular community street party in 1966 has since morphed into a vastly bigger enterprise. Nowadays, the carnival attracts two million people, is staffed by 40,000 volunteers and is policed by around 9,000 officers. This growth has come at an enormous cost. No fewer than 75 police officers were injured policing the carnival in 2024. (Significantly higher than the 53 police officers who were injured fighting the Southport riots just a few weeks later.)

And it is not just the police who are increasingly in danger at the carnival. No fewer

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