Golden Tours has described the crash in which one of its sightseeing buses ploughed into a news stand in Trafalgar Square as “extremely rare”, and says it is now investigating how the collision happened.
The tour bus struck the stand on Spring Gardens in Charing Cross shortly after 12.30pm today, leaving the small kiosk wrecked and bringing traffic around one of the busiest corners of central London to a crawl for much of the afternoon. Nobody was hurt.
A spokesperson for Golden Tours said: “We are aware of the incident involving one of our buses near Trafalgar Square and are currently investigating the circumstances surrounding what happened.
“The wellbeing and safety of our passengers, staff and members of the public are always our highest priority. Incidents of this nature are extremely rare, and we take all matters relating to safety very seriously.”
The London Fire Brigade was called to the scene at 12.32pm and sent two fire engines and a fire rescue unit from Euston, Paddington and Chelsea fire stations. A brigade spokesperson said: “Firefighters are in attendance at a road traffic collision on Spring Gardens in Charing Cross.”
Pictures from the scene showed a major emergency response along the street, with firefighters working around the bus and the damaged stand. The London Ambulance Service said it did not need to attend, and no injuries were reported.
London Streets covered the incident as it unfolded. You can read how the afternoon developed in our live coverage of the Trafalgar Square bus crash.
How the afternoon unfolded
The first reports came in at around 12.30pm, when the bus left the carriageway on Spring Gardens — the short stretch of road linking Trafalgar Square to The Mall — and hit the news stand. Within two minutes, the fire brigade had been called.
Crews from three stations were on the scene, and a cordon went up around the crash site. The stand, a familiar fixture for the thousands of tourists and commuters who pass through the square every day, was left greatly damaged by the impact.
By mid-afternoon the bus was still in position, with work under way to clear items trapped underneath it so the vehicle could eventually be towed away. More than four and a half hours after the collision, the cordon remained in place and the bus had still not been moved.
A busy corner of the West End, closed off
Spring Gardens sits on the western edge of Trafalgar Square, yards from the National Gallery and on the route between Charing Cross station, Whitehall and Buckingham Palace. Closing it, and restricting movement around the square itself, rippled quickly into the surrounding streets during the Thursday afternoon build-up, with drivers sent on diversions around the cordon and bus passengers facing delays.
It was one of several serious road incidents across the capital today. In south London, a crash closed Selhurst Road in Thornton Heath, while in Mitcham a collision shut London Road in both directions, with a string of bus routes diverted.
What happens next
For now, the central question — how a tour bus came to leave the road on a short, slow-moving stretch of street and hit a fixed stand — is one Golden Tours says it is working to answer. The company has not commented further on the circumstances, and no cause has been given.
Collisions of this kind in the centre of the capital are ordinarily examined closely: operators are expected to review what happened, and damaged street furniture has to be made safe before a closed section of road can fully reopen. The stand itself, heavily damaged, will need to be cleared and the area restored.
What is clear is how fortunate the outcome was. A heavy vehicle striking a street kiosk in one of the most crowded pedestrian areas in London could have ended very differently. Instead, an afternoon of disruption, a destroyed news stand and a sightseeing bus being winched away is the story — along with a tour company insisting that what happened today almost never happens.
