Chemical security

Spy attack: Salisbury recovery effort will take until summer 2019

The official leading the recovery effort in Salisbury following the nerve agent attack has warned that the city will not be back to normal until next summer.

Alistair Cunningham, the chair of the recovery coordination group, said experts were currently designing plans to decontaminate areas affected in the attack on the Skripals. He added that in the immediate aftermath the city had welcomed 2,000 fewer visitors each day.

Despite many tourists being put off the cathedral city since the incident on 4 March, he said it would eventually come to be regarded as another chapter in the city’s 1,000-year history.

Cunningham rejected the notion put forward by the bishop of Salisbury, Nicholas Holtam, in his Easter sermon that the attack had been a “violation” of the city.

“My view is that this wasn’t an attack on Salisbury,” he said. “As far as we are aware it was a targeted attack against [Sergei Skripal] and I think his daughter [Yulia] was collateral damage. I don’t think Salisbury has been violated. Salisbury is a resilient city. It has a history of a thousand years. It was a very particular, nasty personal attack using a bizarre method. It will be part of the city’s history but the city is bigger than that.”