Gleneagles becomes a fortress for G8 summit

As Bob Geldof called for more than one million anti-poverty campaigners to march on Edinburgh next month and lobby the G8 conference, officials were yesterday putting finishing touches to some of the most elaborate security precautions seen in Britain.

Although most of the protesters are expected to be peaceful, there are fears that militant extremists, eager for a repeat of the violent demonstrations that have marked previous G8 summits, will cause trouble.

Although arrangements have been made to allow protests in Edinburgh, an exclusion zone has been set up around the famous Gleneagles Hotel.

Situated 65km away in Perthshire, the five-star resort where the leaders of the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Japan and Russia are to meet between July 6 and 8 is being turned into a fortress.

For several days before the VIPs' arrival, a number of roads will be closed to traffic. Local residents, who have been issued with special passes to enable them to move more freely inside the exclusion zone.

A physical barrier of more than 10,000 panels stretching more than 8km is also being erected along the boundary of the hotel aimed at preventing unauthorised access to the venue and its extensive grounds.

Closed-circuit television cameras are being installed along the 1.8m-high wire mesh fence, which is to be camouflaged on the inside so that delegates don't have to look at a ring of steel. Frequent patrols by police and private security personnel up to and during the summit will be reinforced by military back-up teams inside the cordon.

Tayside police, who are in charge of the security operation, claim it is the biggest ever seen in Britain. Overall, more than 10,000 police officers are expected to be on call during the summit and the days leading up to it when hundreds of thousands of demonstrators are expected to stage a series of protests in Edinburgh, at the nuclear submarine base at Faslane on the Clyde and around the summit venue.

All police leave nationwide has been cancelled and police have been given special training to deal with any violent protests. However, reports of water cannon, rubber bullets and electric stun guns being brought in as part of the preparations have been dismissed by police as "rubbish".

Security will be further tightened by the arrival of up to 2000 US Marines who will be flown in from an aircraft carrier off the Ayrshire coast to secure a 50km zone around Prestwick airport near Troon when President George W. Bush flies in.

As an added precaution, all air, road and rail travel around Prestwick will be banned for 30-minute periods when each world leader flies in to the summit - a move which is expected to cause delays for the many thousands of travellers using the airport at the height of the northern summer season.

- INDEPENDENT