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Leeds City Council installs anti-terrorism infrastructure

Leeds City Council has installed safety measures aimed at preventing any terrorist attack involving a lorry in Leeds city centre. Contractors have fitted devices, marketed as Truckstopper, at the entrances to shopping centres and has also moved giant ornamental plant plots to the ends of the main shopping streets. The council assured that there was ‘currently nothing to suggest any specific threat to Leeds’, but the move would reduce the risk of vehicle-borne attacks on crowded locations. The move comes after the Berlin Christmas market attack on 19 December where 12 people were killed and 56 injured when a stolen lorry was driven into crowds. The council has also placed 22 planters around the city centre designed to slow down vehicles as a temporary measure before it has chance to install more permanent security bollards. A spokesperson for Leeds City Council said: “In the light of recent international events and following guidance issued nationally, precautionary measures have been in place for some time to restrict vehicles from entering certain pedestrianised areas of the city centre.”

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