The King made an under-the-radar visit to GCHQ in Manchester city centre today (January 20) as part of his trip to the city-region.
Alongside visits to the Kellogg’s factory in Stretford, Bolton Town Hall, and a community centre in Wythenshawe, His Majesty paid a visit to the intelligence service’s base in Manchester. GCHQ is currently housed in Heron House, just off Albert Square.
During his visit, King Charles III received ‘several briefings from GCHQ’s mission teams’ a spokesperson for the service said. He also met with Sir Jeremy Fleming, the Director of GCHQ.
READ MORE: LIVE: King Charles and Camilla visit Greater Manchester - latest updates
In his former role as The Prince of Wales, His Majesty was the patron of the UK intelligence services. This morning’s visit also saw His Majesty join a class of students from Co-Op Academy New Islington for a ‘special lesson’ to help ‘inspire the next generation of codebreakers, engineers, mathematicians from the North West’.
The North West, a spokesperson says, will become ‘the cyber centre of the UK’. The agency’s presence in Albert Square is expected to continue to grow with the National Cyber Force’s new HQ to be located in Samlesbury, Lancashire.
The hi-tech Heron House premises sees the agency using cutting edge technology and technical ingenuity to identify and disrupt threats to the UK while allowing the agency to draw on the talents of companies and people in one of the most vibrant and diverse cities in the UK. The offices come complete with public space designed for welcoming local technology start-ups and innovators to collaborate with the agency on some of the biggest tech challenges of the day.
The collaborative working space has seen industry, academia and local communities from the area invited in to work alongside GCHQ staff. This builds on a series of collaborative schemes with technology start-ups, universities and schools run from GCHQ’s Manchester office including the North West Partnerships for Security & Trust.
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