London was on Thursday ramping up preparations for the Coronation — with the Tube roundel redesigned as a “crowndel” and a number of buses and hire bikes given a royal wrap.
Tube stations will also be decorated with souvenir posters while West End businesses predict a £50 million spending bonanza over the Coronation bank holiday weekend as tourists join the historic celebration of King Charles’s succession.
The New West End Company predicts footfall of 1.75 million over the three days, up a quarter on last year. International travel bookings to London for the Coronation week are up 93 per cent compared with last year’s first May bank holiday, while bookings from the United States are up 144 per cent.
Mayor Sadiq Khan said Transport for London’s makeover would help to “show our capital city in all of its glory” to the watching world. With Regent Street being decorated overnight with Union flags, TfL announced how the transport network would be dressed for the occasion. The Tube logo is being “crowned” with a likeness of St Edward’s Crown, which will be used at the Coronation. The “crowndels” can be found at stations around the procession route and at key interchanges, including on the Elizabeth line.
However, there will be no souvenir Oyster cards despite being a feature of previous major events, from the wedding of William and Kate in 2011 to the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in 2012 and the opening of the Elizabeth line last year. This reflects the diminishing status of Oyster as Londoners switch to contactless bank cards and phone apps to pay for their journeys.
Five buses will from tomorrow have commemorative wraps in red, dark blue, cyan and pink. These vehicles operate on six routes — the 11, 87, 111, 148, 160 and 390. Ironically, the 11 is being re-routed from this Saturday to no longer run between Westminster and Liverpool Street, a move that Tory MPs say will make it harder for spectators to access the Coronation route. Three bus shelters in Oxford Street will have crowns placed on their roofs. Twenty Santander hire bikes will get a royal makeover — with free 30-minute rides available on all bikes over the Coronation weekend by entering “Coronation23” on the Santander Cycles app.
However, 26 docking stations will be shut due to traffic restrictions around Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace, including numerous road closures. St James’s Park Tube station will be closed on Coronation day and Hyde Park Corner will be exit only.
A commemorative poster that pays homage to one created in 1953 to celebrate the Coronation of Elizabeth will be displayed across the transport network. It has been “reimagined” using the colours of all the Tube lines, plus the purple of the Elizabeth line and the orange of the Overground. First edition copies of the poster can be bought from the London Transport Museum for £50.
Limited edition travel advice leaflets, recreating the 1953 Coronation leaflet, will be available in main Tube, bus and rail stations on May 6. Most hotels in central London are fully booked. Premier Inn said all of its rooms in Westminster sold out in 15 minutes after the Coronation date was announced in January. Across the country, a four per cent boost in retail footfall is predicted by experts MRI Springboard.
Brewer Greene King expects to pull 1.8 million pints in its 1,600 pubs. However, the Coronation may not boost the economy as a whole. The extra spending is likely to be heavily outweighed by the loss of output on the Bank Holiday when most workers will have the day off.
Dee Corsi, chief executive of the New West End Company, said: “There is no better place to celebrate the Coronation than London. Uniquely-British events such as this show our capital at its very best. We’re expecting a flood of domestic and international visitors.”
