Request ID: FOI-1579-2425 Date published: 10 September 2024
You asked
In April 2010, there was a mass demonstration held in Parliament Square by members of the Sri Lankan community relating to the civil war going on in their country. The demonstration lasted for 72 days and was largely peaceful.
I am writing to enquire as to what the knock on effect was for commuters and the transport network in general during that time. Because Parliament Square became blocked, what other areas became affected and how far out from the square did the disruption happen?
What measures did TFL put into place to try and overcome the issue at Parliament Square? Were they effective, and if not, what lessons were learned as a result of the mass demonstration? If lessons were learned, then how long did it take to implement any and all changes to the transport infrastructure?
I'd be most grateful if you would be kind enough to let me know the answers to these questions as well as provide any statistical data pertaining to the event at the time. Such as the number of journeys made. Number of journeys delayed / cancelled and number of passengers who travelled on London's transport network around Westminster during this time.
We answered
Our Ref: FOI-1579-2425 Thank you for your request received on 14 August 2024 asking for information about travel through the Parliament Square area in 2010. Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act and our information access policy. Unfortunately, to provide the information you have requested would exceed the ‘appropriate limit’ of £450 set by the FOI (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004. Under section 12 of the FOI Act, we are not obliged to comply with a request if we estimate that the cost of determining whether we hold the information, locating and retrieving it and extracting it from other information would exceed the appropriate limit. This is calculated at £25 per hour for every hour spent on the activities described. We have estimated that it would cost over £450 to provide a response to your current request. This is because it is estimated that it would take over 18 working hours to retrieve and compile the information you have requested.
Material from the period requested, if held, will likely be in our Corporate Archives. However, this material has not yet been catalogued and so we are not currently able to easily search records from this period. We have carried out searches of our online catalogue for the most likely terms - such as Parliament Square, disruption, demonstration, protest. However, most of the returns are pre 2000 or post 2013. For example, the Metro Pages and Press Notices include articles on traffic disruption resulting from Taxi protests. If you have not already you may wish to contact the London Transport Museum as they may hold records that may be useful such as bus timetable notices for 2010 within their timetable collection. You also may want to look at the published Board and Committee papers from this period in case there is anything that may assist you in your research: Surface Transport 2006-2016 - Transport for London (tfl.gov.uk)
To help bring the cost of responding to your request within the £450 limit, you may wish to consider narrowing its scope so that we can more easily locate, retrieve and extract the information you are seeking. However, given the limitations outlined above we may be restricted in how much information we can provide. If you have any queries or would like to discuss your request, please do not hesitate to contact me. Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal.
Yours sincerely Gemma Jacob Senior FOI Case Officer FOI Case Management Team General Counsel Transport for London [email protected]
