Members of the public have been given a rare glimpse inside the Queen's private apartments at Buckingham Palace, where extensive renovation work has been carried out. A short video shared on The Royal Family's official Twitter page on Friday shows the work undertaken to replace the electrics within the apartments and the audience room at the palace, which were initially installed in the late 1940s.
The audience room was rewired while the Queen was at Balmoral in summer 2017, and everything was replaced by the time Her Majesty returned. It was said to be dangerous and "delicate" work, which was carried out as part of a ten-year programme to replace essential building services such as plumbing, wiring and heating, and will extend the working life of the Palace by 50 years. Once essential projects are completed, there will also be a wing-by-wing renovation, including the East Wing, which faces the Mall.
The audience room at Buckingham Palace has undergone extensive renovation work
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The works programme is also expected to help increase public access and improve visitor facilities, as well as creating a more energy-efficient working environment for the 300 people who work there, reducing the palace's carbon footprint by 40 per cent over time.
A video shows the renovation work being carried out at Buckingham Palace
It was announced in 2016 that the palace was set to undergo major renovations, expected to cost up to £369million. The critical work started in April 2017, but Her Majesty has continued to reside in the palace and still hosted her annual garden parties there in the summer.
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"Buckingham Palace is one of the most iconic buildings in the world, and this programme is designed to extend its working life by a further fifty years," the Master of The Queen's Household Tony Johnstone-Burt explained in a statement when the renovations were announced. "On completion of the work, we'll have a Palace fit for purpose until 2067. The programme addresses parts of the structure you can't see from the outside: the plumbing, electrics and other essential building services which have gone six decades without a comprehensive upgrade."