Permanent anti-terror barriers still not built across UK despite 2017 attacks

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1. The UK has failed to install permanent anti-terror barriers in key public places more than seven years after [the 2017 London Bridge and Westminster attacks](https://inews.co.uk/news/uk/westminster-attack-police-shortcomings-left-unarmed-constable-to-face-terrorist-205025?ico=in-line_link).

   The Government has been urged to find money for stronger measures to protect Britain’s cities against vehicle attacks after [the New Orleans truck attack](https://inews.co.uk/news/world/what-we-know-new-orleans-attack-suspect-shamsud-din-jabbar-3458528?ico=in-line_link), in which 15 people were killed and dozens more wounded.

   Security specialists and politicians are frustrated that London still does not have permanent barriers to [on several bridges in the capital](https://inews.co.uk/topic/counter-terrorism?ico=in-line_link), despite temporary measures having been installed weeks after the 2017 terror attacks.

   In Edinburgh, temporary barriers installed in six locations the same year, including the Royal Mile, are also yet to be replaced with a permanent solution, in part due a lack of funding.

   Judge Mark Lucraft QC, who led the inquest into the London Bridge terror attack, warned the Government in 2019 that permanent anti-vehicle attack measures were vital and “funding disputes between public bodies would not be a satisfactory reason for delay in the planning and installation work”.

   However, while permanent barriers were put up at Westminster Bridge in 2022, Transport for London (TfL) announced in the same year that permanent measures on other bridges – including London Bridge, Tower Bridge and Blackfriars Bridge – would be paused indefinitely due to funding difficulties.

   Lord Toby Harris, who was commissioned by London mayor Sadiq Khan to lead a report on the capital’s preparedness for terror attacks in 2022, told *The i Paper* that temporary work done on bridges in the capital should be replaced with more permanent security arrangements “as swiftly as possible”.

   The Labour peer added that it was “almost inevitable” that some key sites across the rest of the UK don’t have any anti-vehicle attack infrastructure in place at all.

   “The temporary arrangements that are put up [in London] – they are probably sufficient for the [safety] purpose. But there are areas [across the UK] that haven’t got those,” he said.

   Liberal Democrat peer Caroline Pidgeon said the New Year’s attack in Louisiana and December’s car-ramming attack at a Christmas market in Magdeburg in Germany – in which five people were killed – showed the need to for stronger safety in public spaces in the UK.

   Pidgeon, who pushed for permanent hostile vehicle mitigation (HVM) measures on all eight London bridges while a London Assembly Member, called on ministers to provide funding for the work.

   “Given what we’ve seen in New Orleans, what we saw in Germany, it’s something that needs to be revisited and taken seriously,” Pidgeon said. “Any weakness can be exploited. So money has to be found to invest in these [permanent] safety measures.”

   “I don’t think this is a nice-to-have luxury. I think this is essential,” she added. “It can’t be left to local government to fund this. It has to be national government that puts money in here for the sites in London, and there may well be other sites across the country.”

2. oh no.

3. Whilst these can protect specific landmarks/areas, there are simply too many places across the UK (of 70 million people) that anyone wanting to cause harm could target.

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