Officers from Stirling are being primed to help police the COP26 climate change conference in Glasgow later this year - with top cops warning that Stirling may see its own share of activity.
The international summit, organised by the United Nations, takes place at the SEC in Glasgow from November 1-12 and is set to be the biggest conference ever hosted in the UK.
At a meeting of Stirling Council’s public safety committee last week, Tory councillor Ross Oxburgh asked Stirling police chiefs if they expected to send any local officers to help at the main event .
He added: “Do you anticipate activity throughout Scotland - and have you identified any specific threat to the Stirling area?”
Stirling Area Commander Chief Inspector Gill Marshall, said local and national planning was underway and at a “relatively advanced stage”.
Forth Valley area commander Detective Superintendent Alan Gibson added: “Yes we will be supplying staff to the event in Glasgow. We are still working through the numbers but every element of Police Scotland will have to provide some resource.
“The challenge I have is to make sure there’s no detriment to constituents in Stirlng. That’s the balance I have to find.
“This is the largest policing event we have seen. It is a significant event for Scotland and the UK. Police Scotland is drafting in 7000 officers from elsewhere in the UK including Northern Ireland.
“We have a number of officers in the Stirling area who have specialist public order training that could be called upon in Glasgow, although obviously we all hope they won’t have to be deployed.
“There is nothing to suggest there will be anything locally at this point - but we monitor that on a daily basis. It’s reasonable to assume that given the conference is such a big event for the UK and the world we will see a significant amount of protest come to Scotland. This will probably centre on Glasgow and Edinburgh but I don’t imagine we will be immune to it.
“As a human rights organisation we will facilitate any peaceful protest. The concerns we always have are those who will come in and don’t engage in peaceful protest.”
Police Scotland said this week it would be doing “everything in its power” to ensure people who want to protest peacefully at the COP26 climate change conference can do so safely.
Deputy Chief Constable Will Kerr said: “Police Scotland is a rights-based organisation that puts our values of integrity, fairness, respect and a commitment to upholding human rights at the heart of everything we do.
“This means that we will protect the rights of people who wish to peacefully protest or counter-protest at COP26, balanced against the rights of the wider community.
“We will provide a proportionate policing response to any protests and are already engaging with known protest groups to ensure their rights to peaceful assembly and protest are met.
“At the same time, those wishing to protest have a responsibility to do so within the law and I would remind the small minority of people who may be intent on violent disorder or causing damage that we will deal with them swiftly and robustly.
“Part of our open approach to our plans has also involved bringing a number of elected representatives and other interested parties to our training sessions so that they can see first-hand how we embed human rights considerations in our training and planning.”
Around 2500 public order officers from across Police Scotland are coming together during August and September for training ahead of COP26.
