There'll be a minimum of 10 London Olympic security procedure run-throughs prior to the games themselves, officials have announced.
Coordinated by the Home Office, the Olympic Games security exercises will involve members of the emergency services, armed forces personnel and others and ensure that all participants can function as an effective combined anti-terrorist force. They will also look at public response issues - ensuring that, if anything does happen during the real games, spectators are given the right information in the right way.
The UK is spending an estimated £600m to ensure that the 2012 Olympic Games is a safe event and the security simulations will assume real-life emergencies are taking place. They'll follow earlier trial runs that examined how other cities that have hosted the Olympics, like Vancouver and Beijing, have handled security.
There's no doubting the sheer scale of both the London Olympics security programme itself, and the determination to ensure that the potential actions of terrorists cannot be allowed to go ahead.
The security measures will be enforced at ‘severe threat' level - only one level below the UK's highest security classification.
"I want to reassure everyone that with a year to go we will leave nothing to chance in our plans to deliver a games that London, the UK and the whole world will enjoy", Theresa May - UK Home Secretary - said in a statement made at the start of July 2011.
To that end, the Metropolitan Police - which polices London - has a dedicated Olympic Games security coordination centre up and running.
"I want to stress that the summer of 2012, for the Metropolitan Police and indeed the nation and the government, isn't just about the games ... the challenge for the Met in particular is to continue to run policing services here in London", Paul Stephenson, Metropolitan Police Commissioner, told press representatives on 4 July, adding: "...and we are going to do [just] that."
Image copyright Robin Webster - courtesy Wikipedia Commons
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