A case study of how parts of South Wales were locked down inside a ‘ring of steel’, for the two-day NATO Conference of western political leaders. Pictured is the fencing around the Celtic Manor Resort, installed during night closures on the M4 motorway.
Up to 9,000 police were deployed around Newport’s Celtic Manor and key sites in Cardiff, surrounded by miles of steel fencing – reportedly the world’s biggest ever installation of temporary security fencing.
The UK fencing manufacturer Zaun made in Wolverhampton and installed the 13 kilometres of security fencing around the hotel and conference centre, Cardiff Castle, Bute Park, Cardiff Bay, the Millennium Stadium and the nearby airport for safety of delegates.
More than 60 world leaders attended the summit, including UK Prime Minister David Cameron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Barack Obama, the first serving US President to visit Wales.
It prompted a UK police operation involving 9,000 officers from 29 of the UK’s 43 forces. Planning started as soon as the summit was announced in October 2013. Two roads in Newport were closed for more than five days, while all footpaths crossing the Celtic Manor Resort were shut. Some 30 project managers, site managers and installers from Zaun with 35 articulated lorries of fencing, barriers and accessories put up the ‘ring of steel’, part of which ran alongside the M4 motorway at junction 24 and the A449.
Zaun designed sections of steel panels that were fixed to fencing horizontally then flipped upright and dropped into the Roath Basin at Cardiff Bay and next to the Millennium Bridge on the River Taff beneath the walls of Cardiff Castle. Twelve-feet high fencing designed to resist mob attack and, in places, hostile vehicle attack, also went in the village of Caerleon in the north of Newport and at a string of sites across Cardiff used by the leaders.
Minutes after they left Cardiff Castle on Thursday night, September 4, Zaun moved in and worked 24-7 to dismantle all the traffic management objects by 6.30am on Sunday morning, for the 10k Cardiff road race and fun run.
They then removed the remains of what had become a part of life in central Cardiff for weeks – and had been dubbed as Cardiff’s Berlin Wall and The Great Wall of Wales – to allow traffic and businesses to get back to normal on Monday morning, September 8.
The summit generated its share of protests, but news channels including the BBC, ITV and Sky News reported that ‘people are trying unsuccessfully to tear down the fence’ and that ‘paper planes and pieces of wood are occasionally being thrown over the cordon’.
After the event, the Coalition was considering sending Zaun’s ‘ring of steel’ to Calais to keep out migrants at the Channel port.
The Home Office’s Border Force sent a request to South Wales Police. Scores of migrants climbed over fences recently and tried to storm ferries. Staff from Zaun were called to Calais on September 9 to discuss various fencing options, from an emergency 4km temporary fence to a permanent installation of 20km of fencing.
Writing for The Telegraph, James Brokenshire, the Immigration Minister, said it was the responsibility of the French to keep the border secure, but suggested that the Nato security fencing could help. Mr Brokenshire said: “We will offer our French partners the fences that were used to keep the Nato summit safe in Newport. These could replace and enlarge the inadequate fencing in Calais, which is too easy for illegal immigrants to scale. We would like to establish secure parking areas where hauliers and travellers can wait without being hassled by would-be illegal immigrants.”
Past installs
Mr Cameron, Mr Obama and Mrs Merkel first were inside Zaun’s RDS and SecureGuard fencing last year at the G8 summit in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, which saw another large UK security operation with 8300 officers at a cost of £60m.
Zaun also provided the security fencing in March 2014 at the Nuclear Security Summit in The Hague and last year at the influential meeting of world leaders and the world’s commercial, political and financial powers at the Bilderberg conference at The Grove in Watford. In 2012 across the UK, Zaun installed 20 miles of permanent and temporary fencing to secure the London Olympics including VIP emergency gates at the Olympic Stadium.
The company’s products are also used on the perimeters of prisons, critical national infrastructure sites and major events, such as international cricket matches and party political conferences; and around schools. For drawings, brochures and testimonials visit www.zaun.co.uk.
