Bermondsey Carnival will not take place this year because of a lack of money.
Russell Dryden, who puts on the event with his partner Phil Burkett, said he was “devastated” to have to pull the plug, but that he had to put people’s safety first.
Mr Dryden only got £10,000 from Southwark Council this year, alongside other events throughout the borough. Last year the carnival got £35,000 for a smaller, “bitesize” version. In its heyday the council gave as much as £80,000.
Mr Dryden tried at first to get more money from local businesses and grant-giving organisations, but did not raise enough to put on the carnival safely. “We can’t let passion override people’s safety and the quality of event we put on,” he said.
Pat Kingwell, who runs the Southwark Park Association 1869, said it was “sad” that the carnival was not taking place.
He added: “It has been part of the local calendar for years, but the writing was on the wall once the Council replaced core funding with a much smaller one-off grant. Is it realistic or fair to expect volunteers to provide the usual high-quality event with about a quarter of the budget? We don’t think so.
“At this time of financial stress, to lose a popular free community event is very unwelcome. Certainly, the high-priced and disruptive MIK-POP commercial weekend in the park will be no consolation for those on low incomes.”
A petition was launched by the local group in June to “save” the Carnival – before it had been cancelled – by getting more money from Southwark.
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The petition, addressed to council leader Kieron Williams, said: “For years the free to attend Carnival has bought people of all ages and backgrounds together for a day of enjoyment and relaxation, without interfering with people’s access to their park.
“It has been especially important to those who live within the immediate area – over 64,000 people, a fifth of the borough’s population, of whom some 14,000 (2 per cent) are economically disadvantaged…
“Reinstatement of £35,000 would cost about 54p a head of the local population, or a tiny 0.4 per cent of the Council’s overall Environment and Leisure budget of £88m. As we come out of the pandemic, giving some certainty around funding for the organisers of the much-loved Carnival makes financial and social sense.”
It comes as a two-day K-pop event is set to take place in Southwark Park on July 30-31, with the building and taking down of the set taking more than two weeks.
Southwark Council said when the event was approved that paid-for events like the MIK K-pop festival are “already helping to finance Bermondsey Carnival” as well as “nine other events that celebrate a wealth of different cultures, here in Southwark.”
Bermondsey Carnival under threat after losing funding from Southwark Council
The Bermondsey Carnival has a history stretching back to 1900, during the second Boer War, when the Daily Telegraph launched a charitable fund to support the wives and orphans of soldiers killed in battle. The carnival was set up to raise money for this fund and soon became an annual event, before eventually petering out in the 1980s.
It was cancelled because of the pandemic in 2020, but other than that has run every year since the mid-1990s, Mr Dryden said.
He said that he would be trying to bring the carnival back in 2023, and would form a steering committee to lobby the council for more money.
Southwark’s Liberal Democrats criticised the Labour-controlled council in the wake of the news.
Cllr Rachel Bentley, Southwark Liberal Democrat councillor for the North Bermondsey ward, said: “I am appalled that Southwark Labour’s withholding of funding has essentially led to the cancellation of a beloved local event that stretches back more than a century and has served to bring the community together.
From the moment we heard of the defunding of this carnival, we have been making the case that lack of adequate financing could lead to the loss of an institution and we have asked Labour on several occasions to reverse its thoughtless decision.
“To add insult to injury, local residents in the north of the borough, which already has limited green space, will watch as a ticketed K-Pop festival takes over one third of Southwark Park later this month. This has happened in spite of hundreds signing a petition for the council to fund the free carnival.”
I was incredibly sad to read this article in todays Southwark News, and I really feel the need to write this in total sincerity.
Philip Burkett? & Russell Dryden? (together with Eddie Webber?) all have one thing in common. They all have the rare blood group called ‘Bermondsey Positive’ running through their veins.
Since Eddie Webber made his original dream come true, and Phil & Russell took his vision to a whole new level, The Bermondsey Carnival has provided the ‘real’ local people with a chance to see (FOR FREE) some legendary music artists perform for us.
Then Southwark Council decided to cut their funding (even though they must have made a fortune from selling off the land formally occupied by Council Estates to property developers).
OK, maybe that’s the way things work these days, but I find it a very hard pill to swallow, that the people who can afford to spend millions of pounds buying flats built on the land where those old estates used to be (and where true communities existed) are happy to say that they live in Bermondsey (now that it’s become a trendy place to live), but can’t find it in their hearts to put some of their money into keeping the history of what has made Bermondsey become ‘trendy’ Bermondsey alive.