Westminster City Council’s street cleaners and highways teams worked around the clock over the Coronation weekend and bank holiday to keep the city clean as thousands of well-wishers gathered to celebrate the Coronation of His Majesty King Charles III.
Over 100 operatives across 8 teams from Veolia began working at 3am to cover the event area and procession route in preparation for Saturday. Once the celebrations wrapped up and the crowds departed Whitehall and the Mall, council teams got straight to work on the clean-up operation. By the time they finished, at 6pm, each member of staff on foot had walked about 25 miles collectively with a total of 300,000 steps taken, covering about 1,500 miles. This is equivalent to walking from Land’s End to John O’Groats and almost all the way back again.
The team were also responsible for laying and clearing over 50 tonnes of sand on the route ahead of the ceremonial procession. This was laid over metal grates and drain covers along the ceremony route to prevent the horses from slipping as they marched from Westminster Abbey to Buckingham Palace.
Over 39 tonnes of additional recycling and rubbish was collected from the event area, which is the equivalent of 20 black cabs or 3 London buses.
Westminster also worked closely with neighbouring boroughs to clean up after the large crowds of people who enjoyed central London over the bank holiday weekend.
Cllr Paul Dimoldenberg, Cabinet Member for City Management and Air Quality said:
I want to say a huge thank you to all our partners, especially Veolia, and council teams for their hard work getting the city back to normal after hundreds of thousands of visitors watched the Coronation. All their behind-the-scenes work is so important, and the procession wouldn’t have run so smoothly without them.
“We are well versed in dealing with national events, and our street cleaning teams have done an exceptional job once again. They did Westminster and the country proud.”
Helder Branco, Veolia Westminster General Manager:
I am immensely proud of my team’s unwavering passion and commitment to making sure we delivered an outstanding service during this momentous occasion. We have worked hard to make this event as sustainable as possible, separating out recycling from litter collected, and using our electric fleet wherever possible.”
“The scale and speed at which we make the streets clean and safe to be re-opened is sometimes difficult to imagine, but that is our expertise. The applause from the crowds was very rewarding, and I would like to thank the public for their support.”
Published: 10 May 2023