Scotland suspicious packages: Edinburgh Street and Dumfries campus evacuated over security fears

Section of Princes Street and part of Glasgow University campus closed off by police

A section of Princes Street in Edinburgh was closed off by police after a suspicious package was delivered to a business in the busy shopping area.

People inside the Halifax bank and several other buildings were evacuated shortly after the item’s discovery at 12.30pm.

The cordon was lifted after a bomb disposal team left around 2.30pm. Police then revealed only clothing was found in the parcel, which had been deemed safe.

Police Scotland said: “The package was found to contain clothing, posing no risk to the public… Local businesses and residents are thanked for their co-operation.”

Part of the University of Glasgow’s campus in Dumfries was also evacuated after a suspicious package was found there around 12.30pm, but it was also later found to be a false alarm.

“The package sent to the University Campus in Dumfries was found to contain material that posed no risk to the public,” said police.

The scares came 24 hours after a suspicious package was sent to the University of Glasgow’s main campus mailroom.

Bomb disposal experts carried out a controlled explosion on the parcel yesterday, and it was later linked to three explosive devices found in London on Tuesday.

A series of security alerts took place across the UK on Wednesday, as police were called out to suspicious packages in Edinburgh, Colchester and London.

Parcels found at Royal Bank of Scotland RBS headquarters in the Scottish capital and the Essex University campus, both briefly evacuated, were found to pose no risk to the public.

Metropolitan Police said it was liaising with colleagues in Scotland about the device found in Glasgow.

Bomb disposal unit on Princes Street on Thursday (Twitter / @darthgrainger)

“We are working very closely with our colleagues from Police Scotland and both investigations are being run in tandem,” said Commander Clarke Jarrett from the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command.

She said the package detonated in Glasgow contained a “similar-type device” to the three small improvised explosive devices (IED) found in the capital.

Counter-terrorism officials continue to try to identify a motive or suspect.

Security sources have suggested the Irish insignia found on the London packages may have been a “concerted attempt” to make them appear as though they were posted from Ireland, but could not rule out that they had been.

Deputy assistant commissioner Dean Haydon, the senior national coordinator for counter-terrorism policing, said that no link had been made with Irish dissidents at this stage.

Scotland Yard released images of the London packages circulated to transport workers and postal sorting staff across the country.