Bid to reveal cost of policing King Charles and Prince William’s Wrexham visits rejected

A bid to reveal the cost of policing recent visits by King Charles and Prince William to Wrexham has been rejected.

The King and Queen Consort came to the area in December 2022 as part of a celebration of Wrexham gaining city status.

They took in a number of sights during their visit, including a tour of Wrexham AFC’s Racecourse Ground guided by owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney.

This was followed by a walk around the city centre, before attending a service at St Giles Parish Church.

Meanwhile, Prince William visited Wrexham on St David’s Day this year, when he poured a pint in The Turf with Rob McElhenney and also took a tour of All Saints Primary School in Gresford.

While the visits were welcomed by many, republican campaigners have long called for transparency over the associated policing costs.

Wrexham.com recently submitted an FOI request to North Wales Police in an attempt to reveal the cost of policing the visits.

However, the query was rejected by the region’s police force, which claimed releasing such information would harm national security.

Picture shows a police outrider parked outside All Saints Primary School in Gresford during a visit by Prince William.

In its response, North Wales Police said: “The release of information requested by the applicant would result in harm to the national security of the United Kingdom.

“Releasing costs associated with the protection of the King would provide those intent on committing acts of terrorism with valuable information as to the level of resistance they might expect to counter when undertaking such an act.

“Someone could reasonably infer comparable protection levels with other public figures whose receipt of protection is a matter of public record, namely the Prime Minister.

“The costs of these protections remain undisclosed for the same reasons of national security, health and safety and law enforcement.

“Disclosing the information sought would also give valuable tactical information to those who seek to harm such figures.”

They later added: “Whilst there is a public interest in the transparency of policing operations and providing assurance that the police service is appropriately and effectively engaging with the threat posed by a potential attack on a VIP, there is a very strong public interest in safeguarding both national security and the integrity of police operations in the highly sensitive area of personal protection.

“The public interest is defined not as what the public might find interesting but there must be some tangible benefit to the public in the disclosure of the interest.”

Despite this, a quick Google search shows a number of recent cases where police forces in the UK have confirmed the cost of local royal visits.

As per Manx Radio, an FOI to The Isle of Man Constabulary showed how a visit to the Isle of Man by the Queen Consort in March cost £101,463.

Meanwhile, a visit by Anne, Princess Royal, to companies in Durham and Seaham in late March saw the policing costs confirmed as £7,031.

This was reported by the Northern Echo following an FOI by activist group Republic UK.

The Guardian has previously noted its own battle to try and highlight security costs for members of the Royal Family.

Judges on an FOI tribunal refused the publication’s attempt to find out a combined figure for the cost of providing security for the royals between 2017 and 2020.

However, details of spending on policing big events such as the £3.4m paid for security for the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, have readily been made available previously and widely reported on by the media.

Commenting further on why it has decided to take a different route to the police forces mentioned, North Wales Police said: “In this case whether the outcome of request is confirmation or denial of who is in receipt of protection, the net result of publishing that information would be that a review would need to be conducted, plans changed to ensure that the threat level was effectively challenged and development of a new protection plan that would in all likelihood require additional resources to be provided and probably the extension of protection to those who had not been in receipt of it before the release of the requested information.

“After weighing up the competing interests I have determined that to confirm or deny that we hold the requested information would not be in the public interest.

“North Wales Police considers that the benefit that would result from the information being disclosed, does not outweigh the harm arising from disclosing information relating to who is provided with protection.”