London Green Message – London Pride Parade – 8 July 2017

On Saturday, 8 July, Pride in London hold their annual parade and related events in central London for the LGBT+ community. This is a unique event celebrating London’s diverse communities, which the Metropolitan Police Service has proudly supported for many years.

This year, 150 police officers and staff from the Met will take part in the parade, alongside representatives from British Transport Police, the London Ambulance Service and the London Fire Brigade.

Police have been working closely with Pride in London for some months in preparing for this event and a detailed policing plan has been put in place.

The parade, which takes place from 13:00hrs until 16:30hrs, forms up in Portland Place before moving on to Oxford Circus, down Regent Street, through Piccadilly Circus and Lower Regent Street before turning left into Pall Mall, Pall Mall East, Cockspur Street, past Trafalgar Square, and into Whitehall where it disperses.

Road closures will be in place throughout the route.

Officers from the Police Liaison Team will be on the ground on the day to engage with the organisers. There will also be a number of high visibility police patrols, including both armed and unarmed officers, as well as plain clothes officers being deployed at the event.

We encourage those who wish to show their support for – and stand in unity with – the LGBT+ community to come and watch the parade and attend festival events. The current threat level remains at severe, so we ask all attendees to be vigilant and report anything suspicious to police or stewards assigned to this event.

Chief Superintendent Helen Millichap, Met spokesperson for the event, said: “We know that recent events in London and Manchester will cause people to worry. As with any large event the Met’s priority is public safety and we are working closely with the organisers in the lead up to Pride to develop our policing plan.

“We want Pride to be a friendly and safe event for everyone to enjoy and, to help us, we need the public to take the usual precautions by remaining vigilant and reporting anything of concern to police officers or stewards at the event.”