Travellers face new delays and disruption on trips to Britain under government plans unveiled Wednesday to tighten defences against terrorism at airports, rail stations and major public spaces.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown said airports and 250 of the busiest train terminals will get new blast barriers. The plan also calls for new baggage checks at major rail terminals, strict limits on cars dropping travellers off near departure gates, and, at times of heightened threat, frisking customers before they enter shopping malls.
Thousands of movie theatres, shopping malls, hospitals and schools will be advised on how to protect the public from bombs.
Brown said internet and technology companies will be asked to help stop online terrorist propaganda, and he announced that a meeting would be convened with leading British internet service providers to find ways of accomplishing that.
The plan is the result of a sweeping security review of nearly 900 public spaces by Terrorism Minister Alan West, former head of navy and defence intelligence, in the wake of the failed attacks in June on a London entertainment district and Glasgow airport. West warned that the battle against extremists would likely last a generation.
Also Wednesday, a high-speed Eurostar train service was launched, aiming to shave 20 minutes off a London-Paris trip and 25 minutes off the London-Brussels route.
The new fast train service was made possible by the completion of a high-speed line from London to the Channel Tunnel, part of a $12-billion project. Trains can now reach the maximum 186 mph in Britain.
France, which has a national network of high-speed railways, completed its part of the link in 1993, a year
before the tunnel opened. The high-speed line from the tunnel to Brussels was finished in 1997.
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