Police Erect 3-Mile Fence to Protect Party Leaders at Conference in Britain

Alarmed by past terrorist attacks, authorities have erected a 6-foot-high, 3-mile-long spiked wire fence in this seaside resort where the governing Conservatives open their annual conference Tuesday.

During the Conservatives’ 1984 party conference in Brighton on the south coast, an Irish Republican Army bomb exploded at the hotel where Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was staying. She escaped, but five other people were killed and 31 were injured.

The Dorset County deputy police chief, Alan Rose, said today that since then, the threat to Thatcher has been high.

Asked how he rated that threat now, Rose told reporters, “This year I see it personally as extremely high, for obvious reasons.”

The fence in the south coast town of Bournemouth is the first of its kind ever put up to protect a political conference in Britain. It surrounds the Bournemouth International Center, where the representatives meet, and the Highcliff Hotel, where leading party members are staying.

Bournemouth officials said nearly 1,500 police are on duty in an unprecedented security operation costing nearly $3.7 million. Independent Television News reported that Bournemouth councilors hope that someone will help the town pay the bill.