If you are planning to visit any of the Royal Parks in London on Sunday – the gates will be locked.

This is due to concerns that Storm Ciara could lead to a lot of damage to trees, and having people under the trees at the time would be most unwise.

The Royal Parks are home to over 170,000 trees spread across 5,000 acres, with a significant population of ancient and veteran trees that are vulnerable to high winds. Therefore, they’ve taken the almost unprecedented step to close the parks to everyone, including vehicle users and cyclists.

All parks will reopen on Monday, as soon as it is deemed safe to do so.

The Royal Parks are:

  • Bushy Park
  • The Green Park
  • Greenwich Park
  • Hyde Park
  • Kensington Gardens
  • Regent’s Park and Primrose Hill
  • Richmond Park
  • St James’s Park.

In addition, they will be also closing Victoria Tower Gardens and Brompton Cemetery.

Although the parks are nominally open to the public, they are actually owned by the Crown, and access to the public is under a grace and favour arrangement. That’s why park wardens can remove troublemakers if they want to, and the parks are usually locked at night.

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One comment
  1. Rich G says:
    9 February 2020 at 4:28 pm

    Have they cordoned off the ungated St James’s Park?

    Surprised to see on the Royal Parks website that St James’s Park also has ordinary “opening hours” of 5am to midnight, despite the lack of gates to stop people entering at any time. Do the police actually attempt to turf people out at night or is the official closing time honoured in the breach?

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