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Comment by sandworm101 | Hacker News Reader

Given the size of these tunnels, and London's extreme land values, we have to assume they are being used by someone. The government wouldn't let all that space go to waste. So that means there is a largeish population (100s?) of people commuting into london each morning only to disappear into these tunnels. Identifying and tracking these people would be a great open source intel project.

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> government wouldn't let all that space go to waste

Assumptions make an ass out of you and me. That wouldn't even be the biggest waste of resources I heard about this week.

Having said that, it's certainly possible/feasible that the tunnels are being used. The case against would be that these tunnels are in very sensitive areas, and so the security restrictions on any potential use would be very strict.

Some were planned as deep nuclear shelters for cities - and they became completely useless as soon as hydrogen bombs were developed. A full scale war would reduce central London to a series of large craters.

The Whitehall tunnels also provide a handy way to avoid the rain and the public while walking between departments.

So far as anyone knows, there are no permanently manned offices down there, although there may be some storage.

(Obviously I'm not counting the alien base under Buckingham Palace, because that's Beyond Top Secret, as everyone knows.)

Here's a tunnel that's being used. It is an underground farm in an old air raid shelter 100 feet under Clapham High St. They have been running two or three years and are steadily expanding their fresh salad distribution through premium supermarkets and food shops:

http://growing-underground.com/world-1st-subterranean-farm/

I assume 'elf and safety usually means it's expensive to actually use any of these old underground structures for anything.

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