The King visits Met's special operations room in Lambeth

The historic visit was to thank a host of emergency workers for their efforts and support.

Sir Mark Rowley with His Majesty the King
Author: Aileen O'SullivanPublished 18th Sep 2022

The King has thanked emergency service staff for their work during the mourning period, with an historic visit to the Metropolitan Police's Special Operations room in Lambeth.

The new Met Commissioner Mark Rowley, Deputy Commissioner Lynne Owens and the Lord Lieutenant of London Sir Ken Olisa, greeted the party on their arrival on Saturday.

They were also joined by Home Secretary Suella Braverman and Mayor Sadiq Khan.

10-thousand police officers, and two-and-a-half thousand soldiers are involved, as are snipers and drones.

During His Majesty's tour of the site they met and spoke to a wide range of Met officers, staff and partners involved in different aspects of the policing and security operation, which as the largest in Met history is of an unprecedented size and scale.

The King tours the Met's Special Operations Room in Lambeth

Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said: “It was a privilege to introduce His Majesty King Charles to some of the teams working hard behind the scenes to deliver this monumental policing operation, which will culminate in us deploying the greatest number of officers in the Met’s history for a pre-planned event on Monday. It gave officers and staff a real boost."

10-thousand police officers, and two-and-a-half thousand soldiers are involved, as are snipers and drones.

The policing operation in figures:

• Deployed 231 coaches to transport officers over the last 7 days, with a further 250 coach trips up to and including the day of Her Majesty the Queen's Funeral

• Supplied almost 500 extra vehicles to numerous parts of the Met

• 24,000 barriers (covering 36km), 5,000 cones and 1,630 signs deployed

• Our catering team has issued around 25,000 snack bags, 50,000 bottles of water and 28,000 cups of tea and coffee

• 6 feeding centres with drinking water, power, lighting, toilets and facilities for officers to sit and eat were set up in the first three days.

• The Met team in charge of uniforms has been working hard to ensure officers who are normally in non-uniform roles had the right kit and uniform to enable them to cover these duties, with extra deliveries to boost contingency stock continuing this weekend.

• Uniform fitters are working extended hours including this weekend to undertake alterations, including providing a service of mounting medals to jackets.

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