Protesters will be in with a shout
By Angus Macleod

A policing row has been solved with a large crowd to be allowed near the Gleneagles Hotel

ABOUT 5,000 anti-poverty campaigners are to be allowed to protest within earshot of world leaders when they gather for the G8 summit at Gleneagles next week.

A stand-off over the planned march next Wednesday, when the G8 begins, between the local Perth and Kinross council and the G8 Alternatives protest group was resolved yesterday.

The deal will mean that demonstrators will be able to walk to within 500 metres of the Gleneagles Hotel, where the leaders, including Tony Blair and George Bush, will be staying.

The two sides have been at loggerheads over the issue for months, with the council, acting on police advice, confining the protesters to a park in the nearby town on Auchterarder.

The group claimed the agreement as a victory for the right to protest and pledged that it would be properly organised. The new route of the march is on the western side of Auchterarder and protesters will be able to walk through part of the security perimeter.

William Bald, the Assistant Chief Constable of Tayside Police, said that the force believed that the new route was the best solution. He said that the police had encouraged the council to continue discussions after the initial refusal to stage the march near the hotel.

Meanwhile, Edinburgh was last night gearing up to play host to the largest demonstration Scotland has ever seen as it emerged that the police have called in reinforcements to handle events across the country during the week of the summit.

Today at least 150,000 people are expected to take part in the Make Poverty History march in the Scottish capital. While that protest is expected to pass off peacefully, it is known that police are becoming increasingly worried about keeping control of other events during the week ahead.

On Monday anarchist groups such as The Wombles and Dissent are planning to lay siege to Edinburgh’s financial centre and shops, which they say represent the march of globalisation. Senior officers are increasingly anxious that they have had little or no contact with the organisers of the so-called Carnival For Full Enjoyment event.

Another 800 officers, at an estimated cost in overtime, accommodation and travel arrangements of more than £1 million, are to be drafted into Scotland to augment the 10,600-strong G8 police force in the country, more than half of them from England.

While police spokesmen were at pains to deny yesterday that the request for reserves represented a last-minute measure, some senior officers are privately expressing anxieties about their ability to cope.

Apart from the security of the Gleneagles venue and the need to guard other public buildings in Edinburgh, they also have to contend with dozens of other events including, on Monday, a large demonstration and planned blockade at the Trident nuclear submarine base at Faslane, near Glasgow.

The bill for police cover for the G8 week is expected to approach £50 million but that figure excludes the cost of any military hardware used to protect the world leaders.

Today’s rally has been organised by the Make Poverty History coalition of faith groups and charities. Among the politicians and personalities expected to feature in and around the march are Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, Jack McConnell, Scotland’s First Minister, and Bianca Jagger.