Anyone have any more news on this??????

Loads of police, the multicultural festival was cancelled due to a suggested bomb threat. Thousands of people kicked out, wandering the streets as far as firvale and pitsmore in either direction. Buses told to kick passengers out on the street without any idea of how to navigate arround the area which was being evacuated.

Appeared to be badly managed by the police letting everyone just hang arround out side the area in the middle of the road which if it was a 'real' bomb threat seemed very very silly.

Most people around were under the impression it was due to a bomb threat but when asking the police all we were told was 'we are managing a situation go home, the event is cancelled'.

Anyone know anything else about this?

On the BBC news website it said it was a very good day "7,000 people flocked to the Abbeyfield Park Festival on Sunday 7 July for a celebration of multiculturalism in Sheffield.

The crowds were entertained on a scorching hot day by a multitude of performers and artists".

We were there, for once I was managing to chill with a drink (due to not driving), kids were loving it, music was excellent- then came the announcement for everyone to leave the park as calmly as possible, I heard police saying something about 'advance warning'. Obviously a threat has to be taken seriously- feel sorry for the organisers as it was such a great event with a fantastic atmosphere- ruined by an idiot, it seems:loopy:

:D

Do you think that was written in the pub on Thursday, Jon?

One magazine got caught out over a coronation/royal wedding story they penned before the event to get it to press ontime. The whole thing got postponed, and the printed article came out before the big day (it was before the war though, I think)

Originally posted by Strix
:D

Do you think that was written in the pub on Thursday, Jon?


The BBC even managed to post it before the event was due to finish :)

apparently, a man approached police and pointed them towards a suspect package. the police looked at the package and decided to evacuate. i am sure there will be plenty of other versions of events.

the day was going really well though - nice atmosphere, good tunes, genuinely multi-cultural and integrated - real shame.

Not aware of any instructions for buses to alter pick ups ect.....

Originally posted by tango2
Not aware of any instructions for buses to alter pick ups ect.....

I was on a 75 bus at the time, must of hit it as the evacuation happend, the police told the driver the road was closed and that there was no way arround... I got out before the police set it without passengers towards hillsborough??

I presume they sorted something out soon however, but the road was closed for at least 40/50 mins though,

HA always the same, 1 news story, suddenly theres another 37 copycat news stories...........its normally the same with kids getting bitten by dogs, 1 does then suddenly theres 10 more getting bit, all over the country

I was at the festival and it was great. everyone was having a wonderful time. If that was a real bomb threat then we would all have been f***ed. Sorry, but the police let everyone hang around out side the park, there was no rush to get people out, it was a joke. There was no real concern or any real attempt to move people. It was a farse, a complete bloody farse. If there was a real threat then it was completely mishandled. If anyone was in any real danger then there was no real attempt to save them, all that happened was that a good local event was ruined. All this talk about not giving in to terrorism, as if anyone would really try to bomb Burngreave festival.
Farse.
:(

I suggest that it was probably a complete overreaction on everyone's part, although the fact the festival is 'multicultural' does make one a tiny bit suspicious that this was nothing more than a PR exercise.
And yes, if it was a real bomb scare, the police should have evacuated the area, not let everyone mill around in the streets outside. Which means they're either incompetent, or knowingly pulling everyone's chain. We watched for 20 minutes, and there was no attempt to clear the area, just 'stop' the festival.
If they can evacuate the entire centre of Birmingham in two hours, how come we're all sat around one street away having our own festival in someone's back garden? Tosh.

Suspect package eh? And did the police call in the bomb squad as happened in Sheffield the other day? Was there a controlled explosion?

Seems that from eye-witness accounts on this thread of how everyone was 'evacuated', maybe the police have some serious questions to answer about how they handled this situation?

There's a lot of people have a lot of serious questions to answer about the last few days, but they're keeping very quiet about it.
The scale of the evacuation in Birmingham was unprecendented, and is down only for unprecented threat - are they saying we had a WMD threat? If they had info, then they must have had 'warning', even if it were accidental.

Even at the peak of the IRA's campaign, nothing much like this happened. Ironically, that particularly nasty phase of British history is starting to seem quite formalised and even 'gentlemanly' compared to this.
They'd tell you roughly what they'd planted, roughly where, and roughly when. Hardly mitigation, but generally, most people were removed from the target area.
If the 'target area' in this case was the whole of Birmingham, then, well...

I'm still trying to find out more about this 'training exercise' on Thursday morning that took place in the unnderground around 9am.

i liked it after the london bombings when the news kept saying "there wasnt even any warning" ???? like theres supposed to be, its not the ****ing IRA now lol

queensbury rules and all that

Originally posted by pwhole
I'm still trying to find out more about this 'training exercise' on Thursday morning that took place in the unnderground around 9am.

I'm also interested to know more about the statement that the israely embassy was warned about the london bombing before it happend.

pw hole,

A little bit insensitive I thought for you to refer to last Thursday as a 'training exercise', dont you feel anything for the poor relatives of the victims of those disgusting and cowardly events that took place on Thursday morning.

Is this flippant throw away comment some kind of poor humour on your part but if not, then perhaps you would have liked to have been sat on the top deck of the number 30 bus travelling round Tavistock Square last Thursday morning and taken part in the 'training excercise', you may well have survived as some lucky people did, or perhaps be awaiting news of a missing relative or loved one whos body is stuck 150 feet underground on a partly destroyed tube train in conditions where the emergency services have been working in unbearable temperatures and conditions.

As for the whole of Birmingham being evacuated, I think the news showed it to be the main central entertainment area and part of Chinatown which although the area contained a large number of people at that time of night on a busy weekend as one would expect it to have done, its hardly the whole of Birmingham.


Tazman.

I think he may be reffering to the supposed bomb evacuation training exercise that was occuring at the same time and unconnected to the real bombs going off. Not sure though.

Originally posted by tazman
pw hole,

A little bit insensitive I thought for you to refer to last Thursday as a 'training exercise', dont you feel anything for the poor relatives of the victims of those disgusting and cowardly events that took place on Thursday morning.

Tazman.

come on, a little bit of humour in such bad times gets you through, otherwise you may as well throw the towel in now......at the WW2 celebrations they admitted such.........it was humour and working together that got people through the war, blitz, fighting, hardship etc

Originally posted by aNTAcid
I think he may be reffering to the supposed bomb evacuation training exercise that was occuring at the same time and unconnected to the real bombs going off. Not sure though.

It's a reference to this post:
http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/showthread.php?postid=487328#post487328

post, in which someone mentioned that a bomb evacuation drill for (simulated) 4 bombs on the underground was scheduled for 9:30 on Thursday morning.

I don't think anyone with an ounce of decency would be so callous as to call Thursday morning's events a 'training exercise' or anything similar.

I apologise unreservedly if this is what was meant by the 'training exercise'.

Sorry pw hole, I wasnt aware of the exercise as you obviously were and I got a bit miffed about all the sufering thats currently going on down there at the moment.

Once again sorry to anyone offended by my earlier rant.:)

Tazman

Originally posted by aNTAcid
I'm also interested to know more about the statement that the israely embassy was warned about the london bombing before it happend.

Eh, what statement??

This sounds like typical Islamist propaganda and I would be very wary of believing it. I was in Algeria September 2001 and similar rumours circulated that all the Jewish people who worked at the World Trade Center had been warned and didn't turn up for work on the morning of 11th September.

This was explained as it being organised by the Israelis to discredit Islam.

Utter ****** of the worst kind in my opinion, but still a widely believed conspiracy theory in the Arabic world,

Alastair

Yeah, i know I'm not initiially inclined to belive it, but think it was actually reported on israelly radio that they had been warned but later retracted the statement. Anyway not really the time or place for conjecture