The cost of bringing the Queen to Colchester was a modest £9,000, Colchester Council has revealed.

Chief executive Adrian Pritchard said that businesses, who sponsored the lunch given to the royal party, had helped keep expenses down.

He said: "The overall council budget for the royal visit was just over £9,000, the majority of which was spent on providing crowd barriers so people could enjoy the walkabout, and on costs associated with supporting the police with their security checks."

Essex Police said the security operation mounted during the visit had not incurred any extra costs. Shifts were juggled so that none of the hundreds of officers who attended was working overtime.

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Published Friday, November 26, 2004

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