Controversies Over Operation Sassoon
On September 21st 2004, an internal Metropolitan Police inquiry was launched after detailed plans for the mass evacuation of London were found on the seat of a train in a Tesco carrier bag. The plans, discovered on one of four CD-ROMs which were in the carrier bag, were found by a warehouse worker from Essex who had been travelling on a commuter train between London and Gravesend, Kent. According to The Sun newspaper, the dossier was headed Operation Sassoon - Metropolitan Police Traffic Plan for the Mass Evacuation of London and dated June 3rd, 2004.
Operation Sassoon would see railway stations outside the capital receiving Londoners escaping a disaster. Local authorities in neighbouring counties were deeply concerned that the local infrastructure would not cope with the sheer volume of people fleeing the capital. They have stressed to the London Resilience Forum that evacuation should be used as a last resort and only in the most "catastrophic of circumstances".
The planning details for Operation Sassoon are being kept secret, hence no details being published by the Government or the media. As of August 2005, a google search for the term brings up only 237 hits. Websites such as the Hampshire County Council website include some of the scarce traces of Operation Sassoon information on the internet.
There are plans to update the current Operation Sassoon have been subject to some disagreement between partners within London and the surrounding regions. It is unlikely that the new plan will be delivered for the August 2007 deadline.
Read more about this topic: Operation Sassoon
Famous quotes containing the word operation:
“Waiting for the race to become official, he began to feel as if he had as much effect on the final outcome of the operation as a single piece of a jumbo jigsaw puzzle has to its predetermined final design. Only the addition of the missing fragments of the puzzle would reveal if the picture was as he guessed it would be.”
—Stanley Kubrick (b. 1928)