Rail security moves 'police call'

Published on 19/11/2007 00:37

RAIL passengers at major stations such as Edinburgh Waverley and Glasgow Central will only face airport-style scanning and queues when the police deem it necessary, Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly said yesterday.

She said that the facility for this higher level of security should be in place at the UK's 250 busiest rail stations but would only be used when security chiefs believed there was a real threat. But Ms Kelly said one of the lessons from the attempted suicide bombing at Glasgow Airport was to ensure that there was proper protection to stop terrorists being able to accelerate cars into areas packed with travellers.

Tackled on BBC1's Andrew Marr Show on whether airport style scanning would be an automatic feature at all Britain's biggest train stations she said: "What we have got to do is do this in a proportionate manner. Operational decisions will always be for the police.

"I think it is right that they have the facility to do that when they think that is necessary.

"Those are matters for the police and they will have to make their judgements on the basis of the evidence and what they think the likely threat is and so forth. What we will see, I think, is probably the sort of larger plant pots around the place to stop cars driving into stations."