POLICING THE G7 SUMMIT
With the G7 Summit drawing ever closer, how ready is Cornwall? RICHARD WHITEHOUSE looks at police preparations for the event
CORNWALL will have one of the biggest police forces in the country when it hosts the G7 Summit in June. With the gathering of world leaders in Carbis Bay drawing ever closer, more details have been revealed about how Devon and Cornwall Police is preparing for the event.
Described as “the biggest policing and security event in England this year,” it will be the largest policing event to have ever taken place in Cornwall.
And while the public announcement about the G7 coming to Cornwall was made in January, preparations have been taking place for months beforehand.
Over the weekend of June 11 to 13 leaders from all over the world – with US President Joe Biden, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron among them – are due to come to the little upmarket resort near St Ives.
Superintendent Jo Hall, of Devon and Cornwall Police, said: “We have been planning for this for months now. Although this is the first time we have spoken to the media about it, the planning has been going on for months.
“We’re used to this sort of planning as the police, our day job is planning, we have hosted big events before so our plans are not new to us, they are agile, they are scalable, so an event this size, it is the biggest policing and security event in England
this year so you can imagine the planning behind it is quite complex.
“We will have around 5,000 police officers joining us from mutual aid, that is police officers from around other forces coming to work with us, but to be clear it will be under our command, that is Devon and Cornwall’s command.
“Over the event itself, we will have around 6,500 officers and staff deployed so we will be one of the biggest forces in the UK for that weekend. It is not just police officers or people, there will be police animals as well. We will have 150 police dogs coming down to work with us and we will be policing land, sea and air, so lots of staff, lots of resources, a big event to look forward to.”
Those resources will also include a large number of specialist officers, including armed police, and those who will be working to cover the air and sea aspects of the operation.
“We have got specialist resources in the force anyway, but the officers that are coming in, a lot of them will have specialist skills to bolster our own specialist skills, and we will be policing land, sea and air so it won’t just be police officers that you might see around the streets it will be covering sea and air as well.
“With regards to the air, we own drones. Devon and Cornwall have a fantastic drones resourcing team so we have them out as a daily business for us, so we will be using them for the G7 as well. We have our own police dogs, our own firearms officers the resources we have got at our fingertips are huge but what comes with a big event is you need bigger numbers, so that is why we are getting that support in.
“But even that is normal for us. Recently we were in Bristol supporting the officers in Bristol with the protests, so mutual aid is not something that is unusual for us, we share our resources with other forces and now they can give us a hand.”
It is also possible that there will be police boats patrolling the waters around Carbis Bay.
Supt Hall said: “You are likely to see something like that, specific tac
tics I wouldn’t be allowed to talk about, but yes, you are likely to see marine police, particularly around Carbis Bay. We also know there will be restrictions around Carbis Bay, so we have asked the council to apply for a harbour restriction, so that is subject to a process which is still going through at the moment.
“What we are asking for is for restrictions to keep Carbis Bay safe. We are not seeking to close it, we are not seeking to disproportionately impact on fishing vessels, business vessels or pleasure vessels. What it is likely to look like is a navigational restriction, in my mind it will be ‘come out of the harbour and go left not right’, it will be those sort of restrictions. We do expect restrictions around the immediate event at the time, so if you don’t need to be in the harbour that weekend at that time you may want to think about coming back another day, but if you’re a business and that is your livelihood then access to the sea will remain open for you.”
With so many officers and staff working in Cornwall over the G7 weekend and coming from all over the UK, the police have had to work out where they will all stay.
Supt Hall said: “We will have our local officers and we will have officers from all over Devon and Cornwall as well. This is a force effort for us, so everybody, it is all hands on deck and it will be people from all over the force helping.
“With regards to accommodation of officers, we have secured 100 sites now in Cornwall so we will be using those sites to house our officers. And it’s really important for us that is done properly, that we look after our officers, make sure they’re fed and that they sleep well, they will then be fit and healthy and be able to deliver really well for our communities.”
It is this word – community – that the police have been stressing is at the heart of all the planning for G7. While they want to make sure that they have everything in place for everyone involved in the summit, they also want to ensure that the people of Cornwall are safe as well.
“The important thing for us is communities. We really want to keep the communities engaged, involved, we want to hear their feedback because ultimately we are keeping the event safe but we want to keep life going for our communities as well and minimise any disruption because people just want to be able to get their kids to school, or get about their business or go to work, so we are doing a lot of work with our communities to try and make sure that we do the very best to minimise the impact on them and some of the things we are planning for. So protests, for example, we want our communities to understand our messaging and work with us, we don’t want unlawful or violent protests and we want our communities to work with us to make that unacceptable. We want the message to be, ‘come and visit us, enjoy the event, but listen to our communities and work with us to make this unacceptable’.”
And she added: “When I talk about planning, I do mean the planning for G7 and must keep reminding myself that our planning does include our business as usual, as we call it, the daily policing. We are planning to deliver the event but also make sure that we still have the resources in place to deliver for our communities, so our daily policing. That is included in our planning.
“Our message to the community is if you need us, then contact us as you always would; we are still here for you and we still want that contact. Because of the nature of this event our resources might look slightly different, so we need to move our resources around to where we need them. I mentioned that our plans are agile and scalable, what we are planning for today, or what our assumptions are today, might be different next week, might be different come June, but we are agile enough that we can move our resources around so if you’re used to seeing the same neighbourhood officer in the same street every week you might not have it for that weekend but we remain the emergency service and we remain available and we want people to contact us if they need us.”
However, while the police want to make sure it is business as usual in Cornwall there will be some unavoidable disruption.
It was announced last week that it was expected that Falmouth and St Ives town centres would remain open during the G7 period but that the venues being used – Carbis Bay Hotel, Tregenna Castle in St Ives, and the National Maritime Museum in Falmouth – would be closed to the public for the duration.
In addition, it has been stated that the St Ives railway branch line will be closed and there will be road closures in place at times.
But again, the police are keen to stress that this will be kept to a minimum and it will not mean that people will be trapped in their homes on the second weekend in June.
“Disruption is inevitable and that has probably been the biggest question we have had since it was known that the G7 was coming; we haven’t been able to give specific information until now. We hope to know specific details in May for locally what roads are going to be closed and the times and the dates, we hope to know that information in May.
“The reality of it is the closer you are to those four venues and the closer to the event times you are, the more likely you are to see disruption. But we are not talking about weeks of disruption, we are talking more about days.
“One of the questions raised most often with us is, ‘is my road going to be closed?’ At some stage we probably are going to need to close the road because our job is the security of the event and we need to get the delegates from one place to another but what we are doing is trying to keep that to an absolute minimum, so we work with the Cabinet Office to try and understand what is the plan and we work with other agencies on what is the safest way to do it and we work with the council, so we understand what traffic management plan has to be put in place if we do have to close roads.
“Our intention is to only close what we need and only close it for a short period of time that we want. People are not going to be locked in their houses. I was asked by someone if their mum would be able to get out of her house, so there will always be pedestrian access and we
are not locking people indoors, but I would say expect disruption if you are close to those venues but we will do our best to minimise it.
“In relation to those and keeping people informed we are running regular Facebook Live events and that is where each agency is giving updates to the public and the public can ask us questions, and on top of that we have launched a website this week so the police have a new G7 website, we will keep all our up to date information on there, and there are decent FAQs and contact details on there if you have any specific questions or for our partner agencies. We are really keen that people use that to keep an eye on what information has come in. On communities, if you live, for example, on the main road that we use to get the delegates through and we do need to close it for a period of time, if you are directly affected you will be contacted by our neighbourhood policing team.
“We are trying to make sure that nothing is forgotten but if there are specific issues that people are concerned about then they can get in contact using the details on our website.
“The big thing for us is making sure that our community is at the heart of this. We know we are policing a big event, it is a worldwide event, and we are confident that we are going to deliver that well, but alongside that we live and work with our communities and so it is really important to us that we minimise any disruption to them, that they are engaged throughout and we take their feedback and we build that into our planning.”
While planning for an event like this is extremely serious, there must also be excitement amongst those officers who are involved – Supt Hall’s face lights up at the question as she replies: “Absolutely, yes, it is the biggest security event in England this year, the biggest one we have ever managed and we train in specialist skills in all sorts of areas, day in day out, and this gives us the opportunity to show off those skills and use them.
“We are really proud to be hosting this and who wouldn’t want to come to Cornwall in June? It’s beautiful and I can’t wait to go down there.”