Carnival route remains unchanged

The parade snakes though the streets of Notting Hill
The carnival is worth about £90m to the London economy
The route to this year's Notting Hill Carnival will remain unchanged, organisers have announced.

Speaking at the event's official launch, organisers said the traditional parade route would continue through Notting Hill.

Critics have said the narrow streets of the area are too cramped and dangerous for the crowds that attend.

In 2005, London's mayor introduced a separate event in Hyde Park which drew criticism from some supporters.

Slavery and leukaemia

This will continue with the Panorama event - a steel band competition taking place in Hyde Park on the Saturday before the carnival.

The theme for this year's carnival, to run on 26 and 27 August, is Set All Free.

"The theme for Carnival 2007, has a very serious message," said Notting Hill Carnival's chairman, Professor Chris Mullard.

"We mark the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade and acknowledge that slavery continues around the world today in many forms."

About 2m visitors are expected to attend the carnival over the Bank Holiday weekend.

Based on previous figures, visitors are expected to consume about five tonnes of chicken, one tonne of rice and peas and 25,000 bottles of rum, said organisers.

Mayor Ken Livingstone said: "I am very pleased to be backing the carnival again, particularly in the year that we are marking the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in England."

The official charity of this year's carnival is the African Caribbean Leukaemia Trust (ACLT). The trust hopes the high-profile boost will encourage more black and mixed race people to donate their bone marrow to leukaemia sufferers.

It said black people are currently 20,000 times less likely than white people to find a successful match from a bone marrow donor.

I hear today that parts of the Notting Hill Carnival will be held in Hyde park and not on the streets as per historic tradition.....is this the beginning of the end of this historic event....For me it feels like the final sell out of this once great event...

Notting Hill carnival died ages ago.

It's good to know you've woken up - this was pointed out on this messageboard a year ago.

I'm glad you've woken up - having checked, this was actually pointed out on this messsageboard two years ago, not one.

LOL @ Marcus Garvey. He said he was never asleep to the situation, yet you still use the phrase 'woken up'. It's a very feminine tactic I think. use underhand insults/barbs which people can't overtly pinpoint. When they get annoyed with you you and take it to the surface you can feign innocence.

What's with the rudeness @ MGL?

Its not rudeness, its the death throws of a dying breed....I find it quite ironic that he uses the symbol of Garvey without ever demonstrating the greatest traits of Garvey, that was his ability to communicate to the common man and woman and unify them with ideas and vision...

Instead it appears that some adopt what i think were the worse traits of the man, especially the period when he conducted a slagging match with Du bios et al... neck stepping or 'bigging ones self up at the expense of others is not only a self defeating objective, it is a time limited strategy that in truth has long since past its sell by date...

The fact that some so called Pan Africanist still feel it relevant to project themselves, by demigrating those who do not share their EXACT ideals, is not only sad, but is for me part of the reason why they are and will be a dying breed.. If one cannot engage those outside of their circle, then i simply ask what use are they or their ideology?

I find it interesting how often said person comes onto this site to have childish digs at virtually every opportunity, if he is so right as he likes to think, then i would have thought he and his cohorts would have convert this long ago, or would be far to busy moulding new converts to be bothered with one website. The fact that he appears to have a surplus of time to make these sanctimonious pronouncements from on high, speaks volumes as where they are at..

So lets get this straight I'm NOT a fan of MGL, and will never be fan of this person [and he already knows the reason why this is] But I am also of the belief that somethings are bigger than individual feelings, or should be... The fact that some people do not seem to get that simple point, is in my opinion one of the reasons why things have not changed and will never change... and that why he and people like him will be a dying breed!!!

The "news"' you've posted is two years old.

That's how long ago it was posted on this website.

I think Notting Hill Carnival stopped being an event you could properly recognise as a 'Carnival' from a Caribbean standpoint a long time ago, and I think it's misleading to judge it from that perspective for all sorts of reasons. Today, it's a British (specifically London) event, and whilst it acknowledges some semblance of Caribbean origins, it also owes as much these days to changing demography, popular street culture and, increasingly, corporate interests.

None of that makes it invalid as an event - and somebody makes money out of it, though certainly not (yet) Prof Mullard and his crew. And whether we like it or not, Notting Hill ain't what it used to be, and ain't gonna change anytime soon.

I do have a sadness at the erosion of the Caribbean culture I grew up with in London, and it seems to be accelerating. What's happened to Carnival is a very visible symbol of that, but not the most important one for me. I'd rather something stayed which at least tried to acknowledge where it came from, than be obliterated by the rise of Asian melas, which could all too easily happen. Go to one of those if you want to see rampant commercialism......

So if I want Carnival, I head for the Caribbean. Whatever happens in London, for me it is not Carnival. But there is a place for something.

Not surprising, given the chance they would probably abandon it altogether.

I don't go the Carnival, in fact, I haven't been in about 10 years; which was when a fight broke out and all I saw were bottles flying over my head.