The Sobering Business Breakfast Briefing

Not that I usually attend boozy business breakfasts, but yesterday's was distinctly sobering...

It was a session put together by London First and was all about counter terrorism and security measures and how they might affect London businesses. The key messages were that the threat level is high, and it's long term.

A senior Met officer spoke about risks concerning public spaces like shopping malls and high streets - places where it's not feasible to screen or control entry. They have an impressive training resource which features a video simulation of a serious explosion in a busy public space - challenging you to think how to react if you were the retailer - have you trained staff appropriately ? He pointed that we (it was a business audience) all have evacuation plans for our buildings in the event of fire - but actually, if the incident is an explosion, evacuation isn't always the best option. Imagine you hear/see an explosion near your building, you evacuate people as per the fire plan - they're all standing outside at the assembly point to potentially get showered with shards of glass from a secondary explosion. It may be that a better action is to move people within the building to a secure refuge away from windows. Obviously the circumstances depend on each building - but it got me thinking about what arrangements we have in our office of 500 people - it's a big responsibility.

Other stuff I learned....

• Glass is the biggest danger following the actual explosion
• Pyramids are the most explosive resilient structures
• The police have "architectural liaison officers" to advise on designing-in resilience to new buildings
• There has been a (foiled) terrorist plot to cause mass casualties through poisoning beer
• The police/government love for acronyms is undeminished - ranging from frequent references to CTSAs (I still don't know what that stands for - but am guessing counter-terrorism something something) to MSK (Mohammed Sidiqi Khan, the 7/7 bomber).

It was one of the better business breakfast briefings I've attended - probably reinforced by the fact that when I got to Oxford Circus tube to head back to the office, there were a signficant number of policemen with big guns, patrolling the concourse. What's happened (and happening) to our city is truly saddening.

Jayne