The 2012 Olympic Games will present London and the UK at large with an unprecedented security challenge. Entitled ‘Secure London’, this dedicated conference will be held on 28 and 29 October at the Guoman Hotel.
Highlighting the significance of Secure London, the event has the support of the London Chamber of Commerce, London First, Cava Media, the Metropolitan Police Service, the City of London Police and British Transport Police.
Steve Cooper – head of the Olympic Security Directorate – will give the keynote address, describing the spectrum of security challenges associated with staging the world’s largest sporting event.
Tackling the CBRN threat
The threat of a chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear (CBRN) attack is a prime concern for events that draw mass crowds, and delegates will be able to learn about the arrangements made to manage such incidents from Alan King (superintendent and head of CBRN at the Metropolitan Police Service).
Planning for the Olympics has to accommodate extreme measures such as the mass evacuation of London. This subject will be addressed by Claire Seed, deputy head of the London Resilience Team, who leads on the development of the mass evacuation of London in partnership with other authorities.
Fundamental to the continuing welfare of London is resilience. Brett Lovegrove of Quadre Resilience (former head of counter-terrorism at the City of London Police, and a member of the Defence and Security Committee of the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry) will be presenting on the vital need for resilience analysis to identify gaps in organisations’ processes and policies.
Designing-in crowd control measures
Past sporting disasters in the UK and overseas have underlined the vital importance of effective crowd control and Professor Keith Still (director at Crowd Dynamics) will be presenting on the challenges of designing-in crowd control measures to mitigate the chances of injury.
Ian Weatherhead and Dai Pritchard of the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry are due to speak on the Chamber’s campaign to help London’s businesses protect themselves against security threats, while John Barradell, the deputy chief executive of Westminster City Council, will be explaining how the Council’s partnership with local business has proved to be critical in helping to protect them from man-made and natural disasters (not to mention crime).
Mumbai is another major city that has suffered high profile terrorist attacks. On that basis, Narinder Nayar – the chairman of Bombay First – is set to describe how the city is working towards building a complete resilience response.
Co-ordinating layers of security
Other topics to be tackled in what is a wide-ranging agenda include the logistics of co-ordinating layers of security, the procurement process (including how prospective vendors should engage), the protection of IT systems and countering multi-seated attacks.
Speaking on behalf of conference organiser the Shephard Group, Alex Giles told SMT Online: “Every time a city hosts a major event, be it sporting or some other type, there are new challenges that have to be met. There are also lessons that should be learned from previous events, whether they’re triumphs or disasters. ‘Secure London’ will bring intense focus on how the Capital must prepare for hosting the 2012 Olympics. It’s a model that we see being taken up by other cities around the world in the years ahead.”
For full conference details and booking information log on to the Shephard Group’s web site (a dedicated link is provided on the right hand panel of this page)