The Press and Journal (Inverness, Highlands, and Islands)
Royal wedding cost police £6.3 million
Hundreds extra officers needed to cope with crowds
The security operation for the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge cost police more than £6 million, figures have revealed for the first time.
Nearly £3m was spent on overtime costs alone, with hundreds of officers drafted in to help police crowds watching the event in London in 2011.
While next month’s wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle at Windsor Castle will be on a smaller scale, Thames Valley Police are prepar- ing for 100,000 spectators. That will make it one of the force’s largest ever security operations, which will require reinforcements from other forces, including the Metropolitan Police.
Ken Marsh is chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, which represents rank and file officers in the capital.
He said the extra hours required of officers for a combination of large operations and an “unprecedented” level of violent crime in London have become a “huge drain” and must be seen as part of a wider welfare issue which is putting front line services at risk.
Figures obtained through several freedom of information requests showed that, in total,
“This is a huge drain in terms of the hours they have to work ”
£6.35m was spent policing Kate and William’s wedding, including £2.8m on police overtime.
Of that, £3.6m was paid by a Home Office grant to cover “additional costs”, the Metropolitan Police said.
The policing cost figures come ahead of preparations for the next royal wedding on May 19, and a row over police staffing levels amid claims that the spike in killings in London is linked to cuts in police numbers.
Mr Marsh said: “Obviously, this is a huge drain on my colleagues in terms of the hours that they have to work.”
He added: “If you ask human beings to work the sort of hours they’re working, something has to give.”
A Thames Valley Police spokesman said costs for the police operation and any additional infrastructure will be shared between the force and the local council, but that any opportunity to recover costs from the Home Office at a later date “will of course be explored”.
A Home Office spokesman said: “Police funding has increased £460m in 2018-19, including £280m from council tax precept, so that at a local, national and counter terrorism level the police have the resources they need.”