Carnival arrangements for the Brent Harrow Road corridor: Harlesden, Kensal Rise, Kensal Green

 

Thanks to DJ AG for this video

 

Update from local councillors to residents on planning for Notting Hill Carnival which takes place this weekend. 

Brent Council Carnival Information Webpage

Brent’s Brent Council Notting Hill Carnival 2025 webpage is now live - https://www.brent.gov.uk/nottinghillcarnival2025  Please do read and share.

Though the southern part of Brent is not on the formal  Carnival  route, the Harrow Road corridor will be a much visited location  

There have been a series of planning meetings between Brent Council officers, the MP’s office, the metropolitan police and other agencies to learn from previous years’ experience, pass on and seek to alleviate residents’ concerns raised through councillors or by other means and try to ensure that the event is an enjoyable and safe celebration with disruption during and after the event managed as well as is possible.  
 
Carnival begins at 10am on Sunday 24 August and Monday 25 August 2025. The official schedule, including fringe events over the weekend, is on the Notting Hill Carnival https://nhcarnival.org/
 
The following local arrangements will be in place during the event on Sunday, 24 and Monday, 25 August:

Traffic and Parking: We will have a Traffic Management Order (TMO) in place. There will be no parking or waiting at any time (including in parking bays) on certain roads.  The traffic management arrangements are listed here

No parking or waiting (including in parking bays) will be permitted on Sunday 24 and Monday 25 August 2025 in:-

Banister Road;
Chamberlayne Road, between Kilburn Lane and Mortimer Road;
Harrow Road (Kensal Green), between Kilburn Lane and College Road;
Kilburn Lane, the west and north sides, between Harrow Road (Kensal Green) and the south-western arm of Claremont Road;
Mortimer Road, the north side only.

There will also be no waiting (except in parking bays) on Sunday and Monday in: Kilburn Lane, north side, between the south-west arm of Claremont Road and the north-east arm of Claremont Road.

Residents in these streets will be able to park in their neighbouring CPZ, as below and have received letters to this effect:

Mortimer Road residents (KR Zone) and their visitors, will be able to park in KL and KQ zones;

Holders of KC zone permits and their visitors, will be able to park within KL, KR and KQ zones.
 
Parking enforcement: We will also have additional parking enforcement from 7am to 11pm throughout Carnival in the most affected areas. This will include Harrow Road, Chamberlayne Road, Kilburn Lane, Banister Road and Mortimer Road where parking will be suspended.  There will also be additional enforcement in the wider footprint including Kensal Rise, Kensal Green , Harlesden and Queens Park.  The dedicated parking enforcement team in the area will include mobile, foot-patrols and tow-trucks.

There will be a road closure and public safety barriers in Harlesden, to prevent members of the public spilling on to the roads.

 Policing:  Following discussions and concerns raised by councillors, supporting residents’ concerns an increased police presence has been committed including outside the main carnival area.  This will include:

BBQ patrols: Police officers, helped by Council officers will ensure the removal of BBQs or sound systems that have been setup outside any permitted area.
 

Immediate area: Increased Police presence throughout the Notting Hill Carnival weekend.
Harlesden Town Centre: Additional Police resource in Harlesden.

Specialist Licensing Police team available to deal with Licensing contraventions.
Additional Police in Westminster who will support our Brent Policing team where necessary.
 
CCTV: There will be additional CCTV during Carnival and Brent Council officers, linked to police command, will be monitoring CCTV covering the area around the carnival to ensure resident safety.

Toilets: There will be 15 toilets including disabled access toilets along Harrow Road and Kensal Rose station with directional signage for carnival attendees.

Enforcement patrols will team up with local police officers to ensure compliance, including preventing illegal street trading, barbecues and street parties. They will be out early with the police to prevent barbeques and stalls setting up where these are not permitted.

Noise Nuisance patrols will be available to deal with any complaints. Please encourage residents to use our noise app to let us know about anyone.
 
Clean up: Brent has planned and booked extra clean up resources to ensure rapid clean-up during and post event, including inspections of our streets before carnival.

A team will clear the streets between Sunday and Monday from 3am and will include mechanical sweepers, physical sweepers and a pickup crew.

The same will apply on Monday night at the end of the event and in the early hours of Tuesday morning the jet washing crew will begin a deeper clean. Note that full cleaning of adjacent streets will be done as soon as possible but may take more than a day.

Nitrous oxide (laughing gas) canisters.  Because of the gas in the canisters they have to be cleared separately to other waste. (To avoid the high risk of explosion when crushed.) They will therefore only be collected once other waste is cleared from the streets. If you see these in piles across the area, they are for collection by our waste contractor Veolia. Please bear with the team as they clear the canisters up and please DO NOT add them to other bins.
 
 
This and more detailed information on TMOs, parking, safety, cleaning and more can be found here https://www.brent.gov.uk/nottinghillcarnival2025  

'Discriminatory' Live Facial Recognition technology deployment at this year's Notting Hill Carnival questioned

The BBC reports that the Metropolitan Police are to deploy Live Facial Recognition at the Notting Hill Carnival this year. LINK The technology has been used in Brent in Wembley Central and Kilburn High Road,

Lord Boateng AKA Paul Boateng raised concerns about its use in the House of Lords ealier this month and was backed up by Green peer Baroness Jones AKA Jenny Jones.

Lord Boateng was MP for Brent South from 1987 to 2005. He asked (They Work for You):

My Lords, a US Government study suggests that facial recognition algorithms are far less accurate in identifying African-American and Asian faces than Caucasian faces, and that African and Asian women are 10 to 100 times more likely to be misidentified than Caucasian ones. The study identified 99 developers, including Intel, Microsoft, Toshiba and the Chinese firms Tencent and DiDi Chuxing, as potential problems in this area of procurement. What research are the UK Government going to commission on this, and how are these firms to be treated for the purposes of procurement by police forces in this country?

Lord Hanson (Minister of State at the Home Department) responded:

 My noble friend touches on important issues and again, I refer to the point I made earlier to the noble Baroness. A survey of the existing use of facial recognition technology estimated that there was no discrepancy between gender and race. My noble friend shows slight dissatisfaction with that potential outcome, and I say to him that those are the very factors we want to look at in the guidance my right honourable friend is considering bringing forward. Self-evidently, if we are going to use facial recognition technology, it needs to be accurate, regulated, proportionate, intelligence-led and organised in a way that does not discriminate against sex, race or any other characteristic.

Baroness Jones was not convinced on safeguards:

 My Lords, noble Lords have had the opportunity twice in the last month to be briefed by the Met Police on facial recognition. On both occasions, including when Minister Johnson from the other end was present, it was clear, as the Met admitted, that it does not have clear oversight, which the Minister also admitted in an earlier answer. When are the Government going to provide some clear regulations? In what other area of public-facing policing do the police make up their own rules?

Today Responding to news that the Met plans to use facial recognition at this year’s Notting Hill Carnival, Big Brother Watch interim director Rebecca Vincent said:

It is worrying to see the Met resorting to the use of invasive live facial recognition technology at this year’s Notting Hill Carnival after scrapping it when a prior trial led to widespread outcry on the grounds of bias. We know that LFR is less accurate in scanning minority faces, so using it to target attendees of this beloved cultural celebration is particularly sinister. Plans to use this dangerous and discriminatory technology should be immediately scrapped.

This planned deployment is even more concerning given the continued lack of a legislative basis, leaving police to write their own rules with no accountability or oversight. Capturing biometrics on a mass scale will not make London safer. The Met should channel its resources into a proper on-the-ground police presence to deal with actual criminals rather than compromising the privacy rights of millions of innocent carnival-goers and local residents.