Petersham Group - Houses of Parliament

Retained, initially, in April 1998 by Black Rod and the Serjeant at Arms to assess the feasibility of opening of Parliament to the general public during the long summer recess, this led on to a series of assignments to take the concept of wider public access through to reality. Every aspect of opening had to be addressed, including security, staffing, pricing, ticketing, guiding systems, guide recruitment and training, tour scripts, publicity, uniforms, merchandising, and catering.

The opening was achieved on a pilot basis in 2000 and successfully repeated in 2001 and 2002. As part of the process it was necessary to ‘sell’ the plans to the House of Commons Commission and the relevant administration committees of the two Houses and work closely with those groups to ensure that the wishes of all Members were respected, throughout the opening period, and the rights of access and movement of all Members and Officers within the Palace of Westminster were preserved during the summer opening period.

Having seen the success of two pilot seasons we were further retained to advise on the establishment of a Central Ticket Office within Parliament to control the issue of tickets and the allocation of guides for all tours within the Palace of Westminster.

The project was led throughout by Jonathan with specialist colleagues brought in to undertake specific aspects of the project. In this way Anne Fletcher was responsible for the work in establishing tour guide texts, overseeing all interpretive aspects of the opening programme and addressing the different needs and expectations of the multi-national audiences that would be attracted to the tours.