Martyn’s Law is draft UK legislation aimed at placing a requirement on publicly accessible venues and locations to consider the threat of terrorism and put in to place appropriate mitigation measures.
Who Martyn’s Law applies to
When the legislation is enacted, it’s expected to apply to anyone that owns or is responsible for a publicly accessible location that is used for the purposes of entertainment and leisure, retail, food and drink, museums and galleries, sports grounds, public areas of local and central Government buildings, visitor attractions, temporary events, places of worship, health and education.
What Martyn’s Law will require
Indication from the government is that publicly accessible locations with capacity of more than 100 people will need to take simple steps to improve security and preparedness such as completing free training, raising awareness and cascading information to staff as well as completing a preparedness plan.
Publicly accessible locations with capacity greater than 800 people will need to produce a risk assessment and security plan to a ‘reasonably practicable’ standard.
Preparing for Martyn’s Law
Whilst there is not yet a date set for the introduction for this legislation, it’s advisable to prepare and keep up to date via the gov.uk website.
You can find more information on:
- the Crime Justice and Law area of GOV.UK
- the Protect UK website
- the House of Commons Library of Parliament UK
