Iranian Embassy Demonstrations Update

Please see the below message from Gold. 

Dear residents

Tomorrow (Saturday 9th May) we are now expecting a demonstration outside the Iranian Embassy.  As you know, the Met has been seeking to minimise the disruption for you whilst balancing the rights of protestors.

The information we have regarding tomorrow is that their protest is going to be the biggest we have seen for some weeks.  Numbers are expected to be up to 5k and won’t fit on the pavement.  This has meant we have had  to consider our conditions in light of this.  We are keen to be consistent with our conditions to ensure that you are not seriously disrupted but we also have to assess each case on its merits.

Given the size of the crowd and with in mind the need for safe communication with a crowd of that size we have decided to allow the use of a stage with a loud speaker.  We appreciate that the use of a loud speaker is a concession that we have not made in recent weeks and this will be a concern for residents but I think it is the right thing to do in the specific circumstances of tomorrow.  In order to minimise the impact of that, we are very clear that it will be one person on the stage using one speaker only.  We are specifying the stage/speaker will be West of the Embassy to keep the noise away from the main residential block and for the protest to finish at 4:30pm.  We are also going to seek to keep them on the Eastbound carriageway to allow residents free access for their vehicles and to reduce disruption although this will be in part crowd size dependent. Also, for clarity, allowing the speaker in this case doesn’t set a precedent for subsequent protests.

We attach a copy of the conditions (will be sent on a separate message) which we have passed to the organiser.  I was keen we let you know in advance as soon as we had decided on the conditions.  Thank you for your ongoing engagement.

Regards…