Met sets out policing plan ahead of 60th annual Notting Hill Carnival

More than 7,000 officers will be deployed to west London over the August Bank Holiday weekend as the Met prepares to police Notting Hill Carnival.

Carnival is one of London's most significant cultural events and, in its 60th anniversary year, remains a vibrant celebration of Caribbean culture, community and heritage.

It attracts millions of people from across London, the UK and beyond, the majority of whom come solely with the intention of enjoying themselves.

The Met's role is to ensure they can do so safely by relentlessly pursuing the small minority who come intending to do harm.

Commander Claire Smart, Gold Commander for Notting Hill Carnival this year, said:

"This year marks an important milestone as Notting Hill Carnival celebrates its 60th anniversary. It remains one of London's most significant cultural events and something that means a great deal to many of the communities we serve.

"The vast majority of people who attend Carnival come to celebrate, enjoy themselves and be part of something unique. Our job is to help make sure they can do that safely.

"An event of this size inevitably brings challenges. Preventing serious violence, protecting women and girls and supporting the event organisers as they work to ensure crowd safety remain key areas of focus. We have worked closely with organisers and partners for many months, and significant improvements have been made, particularly around stewarding and crowd management.

"We have also strengthened our plans to target those who come intending to commit violence or engage in other criminality. We will use intelligence-led tactics including stop and search, as well as the increased deployment of live facial recognition cameras, to identify offenders, prevent harm and intervene early wherever possible.

"Last year we saw encouraging progress, including a reduction in serious violence. We want to build on that progress this year while continuing to support Carnival as the vibrant celebration of culture, community and heritage that it has been for six decades.

"Our message is simple: come and enjoy Carnival, look after one another, respect the event, the communities hosting it and the police officers, stewards and other emergency services working to keep people safe. Help us ensure everyone can enjoy a safe and successful weekend. But if you’re coming to commit crime, to target others or to engage in violence – stay away or know that we will be work relentlessly to identify you and take action.”

The proactive policing approach begins many weeks before Carnival with intelligence-led enforcement activity aimed at identifying and disrupting those most likely to be involved in violence and other criminality.

We are focused on preventing harm before it reaches the streets of west London and we’ve done this by arresting and charging offenders where we have been able to. Where charges weren’t possible, we’ve imposed bail conditions banning those who pose the biggest risk from attending Carnival – more than 330 people are now subject to such conditions.

We’ve also taken weapons off the streets that could have been used here this weekend, including a seizure of 66 zombie knives in north east London and 10 zombie knives, 30 flick knives and a machete in east London.

On Wednesday morning, Met officers worked with officers from Greater Manchester Police to carry out raids on multiple London addresses, arresting seven people on suspicion of robbery. It is alleged that they’re part of a gang that targets music events and festivals to commit serious offences. Information suggests they have previously targeted Carnival and may have had plans to do so again.

We have also worked with the Probation Service to ensure that registered sex offenders who we believe are likely to attend public events have conditions attached to their licences preventing them from attending Carnival.

Officers have been proactively visiting businesses (including hotels, pubs/restaurants, fast food outlets, phone and vape shops, supermarkets etc) in the surrounding areas to raise awareness of the risk of child sexual exploitation and trafficking, advising on the warning signs to look out for and what actions to take. In the Westminster area alone, more than 90 businesses were visited.

Our focus on those who pose the greatest risk continues this weekend and includes the use of targeted stop and search. An order under Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 will be in place for the duration of the event, providing officers with additional search powers to find weapons and take them off the streets.

This activity is backed by the increased use of live facial recognition technology which last year identified 98 people leading to 61 arrests and the opportunity for officers to stop and speak to 30 registered sex offenders. Additional cameras will be deployed this year at Carnival and on the approaches.

We saw a positive public response to the greater sense of safety created by the proactive policing operation last year which is progress we intend to build on in 2026.

Additional funding secured by Notting Hill Carnival Ltd is supporting enhanced stewarding, crowd management arrangements and communications infrastructure to help improve safety across the event footprint. It is a welcome development which we hope will allow police officers to spend more time focused on their core role of preventing crime, protecting the public and responding to incidents rather than carrying out non-policing functions.

In delivering our policing objectives, we are grateful to be working alongside the British Transport Police who will be ensuring the safety of attendees coming to and from the event on the rail network, and for the support of the City of London Police whose officers will be deployed alongside Met officers throughout the weekend.

Chief Superintendent Dominique Ioannou, British Transport Police (BTP), said:

"We're proud to be working alongside our policing and transport partners once again to help keep people safe as they travel to and from Notting Hill Carnival, which this year celebrates its 60th anniversary.

“We know London's transport network will be exceptionally busy throughout the weekend, and we have a comprehensive policing plan in place, including specialist resources and highly visible patrols who will be working across the network to help ensure people can focus on enjoying the event.

“We want everyone attending Carnival to enjoy themselves, look out for one another, and treat fellow passengers and transport staff with respect. We also encourage the public to remain vigilant while travelling and to report anything that doesn't feel right. Speak to a police officer or member of staff, or you can text us discreetly on 61016."

Notting Hill Carnival 2025 key policing outcomes:

528 arrests across the two main days of Carnival.

61 arrests resulting from Live Facial Recognition deployments.

30 registered sex offenders identified and checked through LFR activity.

Four reported stabbing/slashing incidents, none resulting in life-threatening injuries.

55 arrests for assaults on police officers. Two officers sustained injuries requiring hospital treatment.

167 arrests for drug offences.

50 arrests for possession of offensive weapons.