The importance of our plan, provide, protect strategy

It’s been a busy couple of months for Crowdguard.

We’ve not only been working with customers to deliver our Plan, Provide, Protect services for events, venues and public realm locations up and down the country, we’ve also been taking part in presentations, seminars, podcasts and webinars to share our expertise with those who want to protect people and places, but are not sure what steps they need to take.

Let’s be honest, with Martyn’s Law now not only on the horizon, but promised in the King’s Speech, many of those responsible for safety and security feel a sense of urgency to have a plan in place. We may not know what compliance will look like yet, but many are also worried about how much it will cost them, and there’s been a level of scaremongering on that point, which has only added to those concerns.

HVM is less and more than you think

At Crowdguard , we want to support event organisers, stadiums, venues, and those responsible for the public realm in making the right decisions on effective counter terrorism planning and proportionate protection. And that role, we believe, comes with a responsibility to make sure everyone we talk to – whether they choose to work with us or not – has a good understanding of their options for improving resilience.

Our goal is not only to provide good advice on the right steps and available choices for HVM, but also to help people understand the reasons for their choices and how any measures they put in place will part of a bigger, holistic picture of preparedness and response.

It's about time

From our own CPD and SCaN training event at Elland Road in February, through to the FSOA Football Safety Officers Association regional meeting and Fareham Business Expo we’ve attended recently, and the Terriscope podcast and Eversheds Sutherland webinar interviews with our Counter Terrorism & Risk Director, Russ Phillips, our message has been very clear: counter terrorism protection is about a lot more than HVM.

We have always stressed that HVM should be proportionate, taking into account operational factors and budget, as well as risk, to specify a solution that is practical, affordable and appropriate. We’ve also been honest about the both potential and the limitations of HVM systems. We provide a range of temporary, semi-permanent, and permanent HVM systems. They will all stop a vehicle (as certified by independent impact tests if correctly specified, and properly installed by our experienced teams), but they are unlikely to stop an attack.

As Russ has stressed many times during presentations and interviews over the past couple of months, HVM is a strategy, a plan, a deterrent, and a set of physical measures and procedures that will improve your resilience, but the main thing it will give you in the event of an attack is time.

Making time matter

Those of us who work in the counter terrorism sector are only too well aware that an attack that begins with a vehicle, could end with a knife, a chemical substance, an IED.

Terrorists may have adopted the tactic of using vehicles as weapons, but vehicles are not their only weapons. In the event of an attack, the delay to the attacker caused by the HVM is the opportunity that security teams, stewards, members of staff and members of the public need to take action; whether that’s run, hide, tell procedures, evacuation, lockdown, or simply calling the emergency services.

What’s critical in those moments is that those on the ground know what to do. The quick thinking and confident decision making needed come with being trained and having plans in place that can be implemented effectively as soon as they are needed. We hope, of course, that trained personnel will never need to draw on what they’ve learned and that plans will never be tested in a real world environment, but how grateful will all involved be that such preparation has been done if the worst should happen?

Preparing for Martyn’s Law

When we talk about preparing for Martyn’s Law, we’re not encouraging anyone to put a tick in a box. Nor are we twisting anyone’s arm to find big budgets for HVM. Our business model and our strapline is ‘Plan, Provide, Protect’, and the plan element of that trilogy is vital.

Ask yourself this question, your HVM system stops a vehicle from ploughing into a crowd and the driver gets out of the van with a gun, what do you do next? If you don’t know the answer, your HVM is not enough to protect people. How will you alert others to the danger?

What will you do to get as many people as possible to a place of safety? The HVM system may have protected people from the first threat, but it’s knowledge, training, and planning that will protect them from the next layers of attack.

That’s the message we’ve been taking out on the road and online over the past couple of months. And we’re continuing to offer demos and free visits to discuss both how we can help, and how our help fits into the bigger picture.

HVM is not a complete solution, nor is it a bolt on to the traffic management plan; it is part of a process for mitigating risk, which should always be proportionate and doesn’t have to break the bank.

If you want to know more about how it might fit into your resilience planning, talk to our Crowdguard team or visit ProtectUK or the National Protective Security Authority (NPSA) to find out more.

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