Festival fever hits west London

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Festival fever hits west London

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Revellers let loose on the first day of Europe's largest street festival in Notting Hill.

27 August,2012 07:12 am

A sunny day in London reflected the mood of the hundreds of thousands of revellers dancing in the streets on Sunday at the Notting Hill Carnival, Europes largest street festival.Over a million people are expected to visit the two-day carnival, which runs into the UKs August bank holiday.Sunday, the first day of the carnival, is traditionally the day where children take centre stage, and this year is no exception as many lined the parade route through the streets dressed in a variety of loud and colourful outfits.Festival organiser Lewis Benn said the atmosphere was the best part of the whole weekend.Today, this morning, Jouvert kicked it all off -- fantastic people, dubber in paint, as Im sure you wouldve seen -- and the children now have taken to the street in their droves, and its a fantastic atmosphere, leading on from the celebratory atmosphere from the Olympics, he said.Notting Hill has often had problems during the Carnival with violence and drugs, although an increased police presence and greater cooperation between the organisers and local authorities have led to a decrease in disturbance in the recent year.More than 5,000 police officers were deployed on Sunday to keep the Carnival-goers safe.Metropolitan Police Commander Christine Jones said trouble had so far been kept to a minimum.Its going really well. There have been some busy points -- weve had three arrests so far today, which is, as you can imagine, not a huge number considering are here, but weve arrested people for possession of drugs, somebody who stole a motor vehicle and another offence. But so far its been pretty peaceful. We hope to see that that continues throughout today and tomorrow, she said.