Notting Hill Carnival: Streets filled with colourful costumes and music for annual west London event
The two-day Notting Hill Carnival is under way in west London as the streets are filled with colourful costumes, dancing and music.
Europe’s biggest street party, which has been running for more than 50 years, is an annual event over the summer bank holiday weekend and helps celebrate Caribbean culture and history.
About one million people are expected to attend the extravaganza, and around 7,000 police officers will be on duty across the capital on Sunday and Monday.
In the run-up to the event, the Metropolitan Police arrested more than 100 people who had planned to go, and seized dozens of knives and firearms.
All major music and sound systems were switched off at 3pm for three minutes to honour those killed in the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire, and Kelso Cochrane, who was murdered in a racially motivated attack in Notting Hill in 1959.
Children’s day took place on Sunday and is followed by the main event on Monday.
The festival began early with the J’ouvert celebration, where people covered each other in paint, coloured powder and chocolate.
And the colourful float procession then began in Great Western Road.
Festival chairman Ian Comfort told the crowd he was pleased the carnival was happening after its future was in jeopardy because of funding challenges earlier this year.
Pic: PA
The Mayor of Kensington and Chelsea, Tom Bennett, welcomed “friends” from across the Caribbean and said: “It’s one of the greatest street parties in the world…celebrating today Caribbean culture – from dancing, music, costumes but also everything the Caribbean community has done in this borough and country.”
During the parade, there was fast-paced drumming along with flutes, brass instruments, steel drums, dancers and costumes including giant colourful wings.
Flags from Venezuela to Trinidad were draped across the shoulders of people who danced and cheered down the road.
A mixture of adults and children wearing jewels, glittery wings, belts and headdresses danced down the street, followed by floats.
Pic: PA
Pic: PA
Along the side streets were rows of food and drink stalls serving fragrant jerk chicken, goat curry, and rum punch cocktails.
TV chef and personality Big Zuu, 30, said he had been coming to the carnival since he was a year old and has taken part in the floats.
Pic: PA
When asked what he liked about carnival, he said: “Everything. It’s a celebration of black culture in England which we need right now. We have got these idiots putting up English flags. We’re all British, we are part of Britain, this is a multicultural country.
“This is the best celebration of multiculturalism in the country.”
He also said: “Multiculturalism is important.”
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Sabina Challenger, 47, from Hackney, took part in a float with her child and said: “Carnival is about unity and about bringing people together, about reminding the community what the West Indian community has brought to the UK.
“This is something to be celebrated and it should remain in place.”
The Met Police said live facial recognition (LFR) technology – which captures people’s faces in real-time CCTV cameras – will be used on the approach to and from the carnival as well as outside the boundaries of the event.
Alongside the use of LFR technology, the Met also said it planned to install screening arches at some of the busiest entry points to the carnival, where stop-and-search powers will be used in a bid to keep weapons out.
