Military to help cover security at London 2012

[richard]

About 8,000 military personnel will be drafted into covering the London 2012 Olympic security after a doubling in the scale of the operation, Telegraph Sport can reveal.

The Home Office will announce next week that the total numbers of people involved in security will be increased to about 36,000. Comprising nearly 24,000 at the Olympics venues, personnel include the military and trained guards from the sponsor G4S as well as the 12,000 Metropolitan Police on the streets of London. Only a small number of the military may be armed.

These final numbers, arrived at after an intense review of operations, are more than double what was estimated only months ago.

Insiders told Telegraph Sport that the security budget had been thrown out the window as the complexities of searching hundreds of thousands of people entering Games venues every day became apparent.

In the Olympic Park alone there will be more than 1,600 X-ray machines to scan every visitor’s bag before they gain entry to the park.

The costs of the military have been a source of much discussion at government levels. They are now to be covered within the £9.3 billion Government expenditure on the Games and will be drawn down from contingency monies and savings on Olympic Park construction.

Total security costs are tipped to total about £1 billion, not including the counter-terrorism budget which will be largely focused on Games-related duties.

However sources have said that there are not enough spare female troops to help with the pat down and searching of female Games visitors.

At one point the military was mooted to take control of an Olympic venue, freeing up other security staff to boost numbers elsewhere, but the few numbers of female officers mean that the military numbers are now being spread across a range of venues and duties.


Source
By Jacquelin Magnay
Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph - Telegraph