Two wheels good: AP Security secures the Tour of Britain

30 Nov 09

By Anthony Hildebrand

AP Security has helped protect high-profile cycling event the Tour of Britain.

Originally dating back to 1945, when a Brighton to Glasgow ‘Victory Cycling Marathon’ was the first staged cycle race in UK history, the event that has ultimately become the Tour of Britain is one of the highlights in the British cycling calendar.

This year’s race finished in London and took in some of the city’s busiest areas, meaning road closures and stewarding had to be very carefully managed.

This year’s Tour of Britain covered 746 miles (1200km) over eight days in September and featured eight stages, covering parts of Scotland, northern England, the south west and finally London, where ten circuits of a 5.7 mile (9.25km) circuit brought the event to an exciting climax along Victoria Embankment, Westminster Bridge, Whitehall, Parliament Square, Minories and Thames Street.

This required closing roads on a busy Saturday afternoon, managing the thousands of people who turned up to watch, and keeping an eye on multiple places where people could cross the course.

Meticulous planning
It was the first time that AP had worked on the Tour of Britain, and the company said it underrtook “meticulous planning” to ensure the event went smoothly.

The first meeting with the organisers was held six weeks prior to the day, with AP’s head of security for the event, Adam Scott, and his team.

Extensive liaison followed with Westminster Council, Transport For London and an independent traffic consultant.

Because AP’s staff were covering such a large area, maps of the site, working out how to ferry staff to the different areas and supervisor briefings, all had to be done well in advance.

Once everything was in place, Scott’s day started at 11pm the evening before the event, deploying staff for the first road closures, to clear the way for the event’s infrastructure to go in at around 1am.

Night shifts
In all, AP supplied around 200 staff, who were deployed throughout the night, with the bulk coming in for a 6am start on the Saturday.

The route was divided up into six sectors, each having a sector supervisor. Beneath the supervisor, staff were deployed on road closures, as route marshals and at crossing points.

AP staff also manned the event control hub, where all the stewarding, road closures and traffic decisions were fed back to. Scott spent much of his time there, as well as walking the route to check that everything was running smoothly.

He said: “It was a complicated event and, being the first time we’d been contracted to do it, we had a certain amount of learning to do regarding the precise locations, type of crowds and so on.

“However, our regular work in stewarding, crowd management and managing road closures at events elsewhere in London meant that we could apply our many years of experience to ensure that the organisers, police and local authority all had complete confidence in us delivering an event which was safe, but with no lack of excitement and interest.

“Everyone was happy with our performance, the event went really well and we very much hope we’ll be back next year!”