Concerns over Notting Hill Carnival steward funds

Concerns about the Notting Hill Carnival have been raised by both a police officers' group and Met Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, with questions over safety funding for extra stewards.

Simon Hill of the Metropolitan Police Federation said none of the front-line officers he spoke to looked forward to working at the event, and were concerned there could be a deadly crush due to crowd size.

Carnival chairman Ian Comfort has requested more funding from the government to steward the event and address safety concerns.

A report by Sir Mark for the London Policing Board said force bosses were "significantly concerned" that funding for extra stewards for the event would not be in place in time.

Referring to phase one of a review commissioned by organisers that looked at crowd safety and stewarding, the report said: "We are however significantly concerned that with just a matter of weeks to go until this year's event that the essential funding has not been secured and, with each week that passes, the ability to successfully implement the Phase One recommendations becomes more challenging as event management companies will be hesitant to take on an event at such short notice without a sufficient lead-in time."

About 7,000 Metropolitan Police officers are deployed to each day of the August Bank Holiday event. The cost of policing Carnival in 2023 was £11.7m, according to figures released under Freedom of Information legislation.

Mr Hill said officers were "as worried this year as they were last year and the year before" about working at the event.

"Nobody that I speak to actually looks forward to working Notting Hill Carnival, which is a real shame, because it's a vibrant event, it's an important event," he said.

"We should enjoy interacting with the public and serving the community in it, but you have a handful of criminals who turn up to the event and just cause carnage.

"We had two murders [last year], 60-odd of my colleagues on average are getting assaulted every carnival, it's been going on for years and it's not acceptable."

He said the size of the area for the event should expand or the number of people attending should be reduced.

"Everyone accepts it's an unsafe event. Why is it still going on?" he added.

Sir Mark told LBC the event organisers were asking for "a couple of million pounds" to keep festivalgoers safe.

Asked about the average 60 officers who are injured he said: "The criminals who turn up to this event are really violent and very difficult, and, frankly, fighting crime in a confined area where the crowds are so crushed is doubly difficult," he said.

"If the organisers were given the resources to run it better, we'd be able to do a better job fighting crime, and our officers would be at less risk."

Two people were murdered at the carnival last year - Cher Maximen, who was killed in front of her three-year-old daughter, and chef Mussie Imnetu.

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