London may be ‘full’ for the first time over the next week with hotel rooms sold out and public transport rammed with 1million set to queue to see Her Majesty’s coffin and 1million more due in the capital on Monday as experts predicted policing the Queen‘s funeral is the most challenging peacetime event in British history.
The unprecedented demand has sparked a huge logistical operation involving the Met, MI5 and the Armed Forces with Whitehall insiders fearing that central London could actually be the busiest it has ever been.
On Monday at Westminster Abbey, Britain’s Royal Family, most of Europe’s royals and hundreds of heads of state including Joe Biden, Emmanuel Macron and a cast of controversial statesmen including Jair Bolsonaro and Recep Tayyip Erdogan will need protection at the first full State Funeral that Britain has hosted since Winston Churchill died in 1965.
Transport for London commissioner Andy Byford said today that the capitals trains and buses will be rammed with ‘millions’ expected to travel to the area around Buckingham Palace for the Queen’s Laying-in-State and funeral. He has also warned people not to drive unless it is essential due to road closures.
Many hotels in Windsor and the capital have no rooms left because of bookings by mourners, tourists and police officers. This scarcity means windowless basement bedrooms are on sale for £300-a-night or more this weekend and into Monday.
Former Met counter-terrorism chief Nick Aldworth, who helped plan for London 2012, compared the state funeral next week to squeezing the threats the capital faced during a three-week Olympics into 48 hours.
Around 10,000 police officers will be on duty every day in London in the lead up to the Queen’s funeral – including patrols from South Wales and Scotland – up to 1,000 more than during the Olympics ten years ago. Up to 1,500 soldiers will be available to control the crowds, with personnel from all three services.
Mr Aldworth, who was also head of security for Parliament and the Queen Mother, said that Monday hold ‘a different quantum of risk’ that has never been seen before due to the five-mile queue predicted in London to enter Westminster Hall and the volume of mourners on the streets of Central London.
He said: ‘The difference between the Olympics and this event is the Olympics are spread over three weeks,’ adding the Queen’s funeral is ‘probably the same number of people, the same number of visiting dignitaries, compressed into a few days.’
Andy Byford believes it is ‘impossible’ to accurately predict crowd sizes that planning for the Queen’s lying in state and funeral.
Around 10,000 police officers will be on duty to keep the public and Royal Family safe this week and through Monday’s funeral. Security experts say that the events pose ‘enormous’ problems for the Met and the security services
Met Police Officers seen maintaining order while thousands of people wait on the route of the state hearse of Queen Elizabeth II to bid their final farewell to Her Majesty.
The growing queue in Lambeth to see Queen Elizabeth II lying in state from 5pm tonight for the next four days
Armed police officers patrol the Whitehall ahead of the procession to carry the body of Britain’s late Queen Elizabeth II this afternoon
Below the Union Flag at half mast, a police spotter surveys the crowd atop Buckingham Palace this morning
Members of the public join the queue on the South Bank, as they wait to view Queen Elizabeth II lying in state
Mounted police ride their horses on The Mall before a nighttime rehearsal for when the coffin will be moved from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall last night
The leaders of Russia, Belarus and Myanmar won’t get an invite to the Queen’s funeral but a number of controversial figures including Erdogan and Bolsonaro are coming to London and other world leaders are yet to confirm including President Xi
TfL is ‘used to dealing with big crowds’ and will take measures such as temporarily restricting access to the busiest Tube stations and directing passengers to other stations to ‘spread the load’, he said, adding people should not drive in Central London ‘if you can possibly avoid it’.
Hotels are full with Travelodge saying that rooms in Windsor and the West End have gone. Budget chains with windowless rooms are charging £300-a-night as tourists and police officers scramble for somewhere to stay.
Operation Feather – the exercise for managing the queues – is under way with portable toilets and water stations being set up along the route.
As many as 10,000 police officers will be deployed in London, with officers on alert for both potential terrorism and activists such as environmental protesters.
Metropolitan Police officers as well as Welsh police officers will be manning the expected route, parts of which are already lined with barriers.
Portable toilets, barriers and temporary flooring have been set up inside Victoria Tower Gardens.
It is likely the queue will snake along the south bank of the Thames, past Tower Bridge, and as far as the start point of Southwark Park – a route some 4.9 miles long.
Whilst more than 300,000 people came to see George VI lying in state in Westminster Hall in 1952 – and 200,000 saw the Queen Mother’s coffin in 2002 – Whitehall chiefs are reportedly expecting a figure closer to a million mourners this time around.
The figure would rival the estimated one million mourners who flooded the capital for the funeral of Princess Diana in 1997.
The Cabinet Office is preparing for the ‘very real possibility’ that London will become ‘full’ for the first time. Contingency plans are in place for rail operators, Network Rail and Transport for London to tell passengers not to attempt to travel to the capital.
The plan assumes that 750,000 people will want to pay their respects, but officials acknowledge that it could be significantly more. ‘There’s just no way of knowing,’ one said.
Downing Street is urging people to work from home that day. Commuters may want to ‘change their working patterns accordingly’, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said but acknowledged ‘not everyone will have that ability’. He added: ‘At this point, we can’t be more specific on numbers. We do expect it to be extremely busy.’
Asked if there will be any facilities for people who physically cannot queue for 30 hours, he said: ‘Obviously we want everyone to be able to attend regardless of whether they have disabilities. Our focus is on ensuring they have the information needed to make the decision about what’s right for them.
‘There will be toilet facilities, there will be first aid available, there will be the ability for people obviously to go and use toilets and return to queues and things like that.’
A police sniper and spotter watch the procession of the Queen’s coffin through Edinburgh yesterday
People queue in Green Park, heading towards Buckingham Palace. The Tube station, already one of London’s busiest, is exit only, causing congestion
Police are having to guard routes used by the King, senior royals and when Her Majesty’s coffin is being moved
Transport bosses warned London will experience ‘unprecedented travel demand’ in the coming days and travellers they should expect Tube stations to temporarily close to avoid overcrowding.
Planning journeys in advance using the latest information will be essential, according to a joint statement by Network Rail, Transport for London and industry body the Rail Delivery Group.
Hotel prices have rocketed in line with the strong demand.
A basic windowless basement room in Piccadilly Circus, central London, was available for £300 ($350) per night.
And another similar room was £315 per night near Paddington railway station.
The Snoozebox hotel in Stratford, east London, offering no-frills windowless rooms made out of shipping containers, has no availability until after the funeral.
‘Our hotels in central London and Windsor are literally sold out, and demand is… strong for our hotels situated near to a train or tube station throughout Greater London,’ according to budget hotel chain Travelodge.
Visitors are coming ‘from all corners of the UK and across the globe’ to pay respects to Britain’s longest-serving monarch, it added in a statement.
Available rooms are set to remain scarce ahead of the funeral, said industry body UK Hospitality.
‘We’re hearing from hotel operators in London that they’ve experienced a surge in bookings since last Thursday’s announcement of the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II,’ said UK Hospitality chief executive Kate Nicholls.
‘Demand is certain to remain high right up until next Monday’s state funeral.’
Accommodation is also under strain owing to block bookings for extra police and other key personnel for before, during and after the high-profile event.
TFL chief Andy Byford has said that the situation on public transport is being managed ‘minute by minute’ from a command centre alongside other agencies and Government departments.
London Underground stations near Buckingham Palace have seen a surge in passenger numbers since the Queen died on Thursday.
TfL figures show more than 19,000 people started or finished journeys at Hyde Park Corner station on Tuesday, which was double the total on the same day last week.
Green Park has been made an exit only station to prevent overcrowding.
Across the Tube network as a whole, TfL recorded 2.99 million journeys on Tuesday, up 8% compared with a week earlier.
Mr Byford said: ‘The most recent approximation or estimate is that there will be around potentially up to 750,000 people in the queue for lying in state, which is itself a huge number.
‘But then if you take the whole 10-day mourning period and the various events that happen during that – obviously some happened elsewhere – but even the London element of that, we are talking well north of a million people.
‘So this is huge. This is the biggest event and challenge that TfL has faced in its history, and we must rise to that challenge.
‘The Olympics was a huge logistical challenge and operational challenge for TfL, which the company executed in magnificent fashion. But this is different.
‘With something like the Olympics, you know what the events are, where they are, and you know what the numbers will be because it’s ticketed.
‘This is more challenging. It’s over a long period and although there are estimates, it is impossible to say with certainty how many people will turn up to the various elements, so we’ve assumed the highest possible number and we’re aligning our service to match that.’
A special service will run on the Elizabeth Line railway between Paddington and Abbey Wood on Sunday to ease the pressure on other parts of London’s transport network.
That section of the line – which was opened by the Queen in May – is usually closed on Sundays due to testing and software updates.
Mr Byford added: ‘We have recruited literally an army of people from across TfL.
‘We’ve cancelled non-essential meetings.
‘I’ve asked everyone to step up, I’ve asked everyone to volunteer, and the response has been fantastic.
‘We’ve dropped everything in order to pull out all the stops and send Her Majesty off in style with an excellent transport offering.