London, (Samajweekly) The security cost of hosting the G7 summit this week in the UK is likely to exceed 70 million pounds ($99 millio), according to the media.
The local Devon and Cornwall police will be joined by more than 5,000 officers from around the UK in the area’s “largest security operation in history” when the leaders of the G7 countries gather in the southwestern seaside resort of Carbis Bay in Cornwall from June 11-13, Xinhua news agency quoted the Guardian newspaper as saying in a report on Saurday.
Around 6,500 police will secure the event at Carbis Bay, the report said.
High steel fences have already been put up in the Cornish seaside resort to help protect the G7 leaders, including US President Joe Biden on his first overseas trip after his January inauguration.
Roads will be closed and security checkpoints placed across the county, starting from Wednesday at Newquay airport, Falmouth, where media will be based, and to secure designated official protest sites, according to the report.
The security cost of the previous equivalent meeting, the G8 in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, held in 2013 was put at 75 million pounds.
Campaigners led by the Resist G7 Coalition, an umbrella group for protesters, said it was “the G7 that is costing money, not the protesters”, adding that police were adding to costs by their approach to the event.
“As part of its operation, Devon and Cornwall police created four ‘designated protest’ sites that were out of the way, with no relevance to the G7. Resist G7 and other protest groups made it clear that we would boycott these sites,” a spokesperson said.
Demonstrators have been told they can gather in four designated protesting sites, including one in Exeter, which is more than 160 km away.
Leaders of the G7, the UK, the US, Canada, Japan, Germany, France and Italy, plus the European Union, will gather in Carbis Bay for the first in-person G7 summit in almost two years.
It will also be the first major in-person summit held by the UK after Brexit.
The UK, which holds the rotating G7 presidency, also invited Australia, India, South Korea and South Africa as guest countries to this year’s meeting.
Economic recovery, global vaccine rollout and climate change are expected to be among the issues to be discussed during the meeting.
