Public security

London Plans 'Ring of Steel' to Protect Financial Heart from Terrorism

The city of London is planning to protect its financial district and skyscrapers with a "ring of steel" that includes street bollards and manned checkpoints, the first time such measures have been taken since the late 1990s.

The $6.14 million plan proposed by the Corporation of London would create a protective ring bordering Liverpool Street, the Bank of England and Fenchurch Street, the Telegraph reports. The area is home to some of the city's newest and most dramatic skyscrapers.

The plan for a ring of manned checkpoints, crash-proof barricades and other physical impediments incorporated input from the UK's counter-terrorism police and MI5, its security service, which found that the "eastern cluster" of buildings around Bishopsgate is "highly sensitive to the threat of a hostile, vehicle-borne" attack, according to the Evening Standard.