BT London Live @Victoria Park - Crowd Management at Mile End

BT London Live @Victoria Park - Crowd Management at Mile End, a set on Flickr.

These were the scenes outside Mile End Tube Station early this morning - with queues of people waiting for tubes all the way up past Southern Grove last night between 1.30am and 2.00am

Crowds exiting the BT London Live event in Victoria Park arrived at Mile End about 1am in the morning.

Gates were used by TfL staff to control entry into the tube station. People were let through when the platforms and trains could accommodate them. MERA were very pleased to see the efforts employed by TfL staff to prevent overcrowding in the station and on the platforms.

However the Crowd Management Plan had broken down.

• There was a major lack of crowd barriers which was causing concern for the Police.
• The crowd marshals were having to substitute for the missing crowd barriers on the north side of Mile End Road.
• People were walking amongst the heavy traffic on Mile End Road.

No Crowd Barriers: People walking in Mile End Road
outside Mile End Tube 1:37am 28 July 2012

• People trying to get on a tube were having to queue all the way past the flats in Buttermere House up to Southern Grove and beyond. While well behaved the crowd was noisy for people trying to sleep.

Junction of Southern Grove & Mile End Road  28 July 2012 1:27am
The queue of people waiting to get on tubes at Mile End Tube Station
extended from the station all the way back to Southern Grove and beyond.
A queue several people deep was lined up outside the flats
- and people trying to sleep - in Butternere House

The crowds had cleared by 1.45am. This is not unacceptable for a one-off event. It is totally unacceptable if it is to happen night after night for 17 nights.

There is to be a review of how well crowd management worked this morning.

While the crowd was well behaved, it struck us that the crowd management plan took no account whatsoever of the needs of people sleeping in local flats - particularly given the scope to queue people past commercial buildings with no people sleeping.

We will be sending local Councillors and the Cllr Golds who chaired the Licensing Sub-Committee a link to this post and the photographs on Flickr.