Martyn’s Law and Public Safety
In recent years, expectations around public safety have expanded beyond traditional health and safety planning to include preparedness for hostile and terrorist threats. Martyn’s Law reflects this shift, setting clearer expectations for how venues and event organisers across the UK consider, plan for and respond to such risks.
Formally known as the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill, Martyn’s Law is proposed legislation designed to improve protective security at publicly accessible locations. It is named in memory of Martyn Hett, who lost his life in the Manchester Arena attack in 2017, and its purpose is to ensure that those responsible for public spaces take reasonable and proportionate steps to protect people from harm.
At its core, the law is built around a simple principle: organisations responsible for venues and events should be aware of the risk of terrorism, understand how it may affect their environment, and take practical measures to reduce harm and improve response should an incident occur. The focus is on preparedness rather than prediction.
What Martyn’s Law Means in Practice
Martyn’s Law is expected to apply to a wide range of publicly accessible locations, including event spaces, entertainment venues, places of worship, shopping centres and temporary event sites. While the requirements are likely to be tiered based on size and risk, venues and organisers should expect to demonstrate that they have considered their vulnerabilities and taken appropriate action.
In practical terms, this means understanding factors such as crowd density, access and egress points, location and event profile, and reflecting those considerations in planning. It also includes implementing reasonable protective measures where appropriate, such as access control, stewarding, searching, CCTV, lighting and clear procedures for escalation, lockdown or evacuation.
Equally important is preparedness at a human level. Staff and contractors should be able to recognise suspicious behaviour, know how to report concerns, and understand how to act quickly and safely if something goes wrong. Training and competence ensure that plans are not just written down, but usable in real situations. For event organisers, this reinforces the expectation that security and safety planning is embedded from the outset, not added on late or treated as a tick-box exercise.
How RSG Already Aligns with Martyn’s Law
Although Martyn’s Law is still progressing through the legislative process, Regional Safety Group already operates in a way that closely aligns with its intent and principles.
Our approach is risk-led and proportionate, using established guidance such as the Purple Guide, HSE principles and counter-terrorism considerations to support planning that reflects the size, nature and profile of each venue or event. This ensures security measures are appropriate, justified and effective.
By providing integrated medical and security services, RSG removes gaps between communication, escalation and response. This unified approach supports clearer command structures and faster decision-making during incidents. Our teams are drawn from frontline backgrounds across security, healthcare and emergency services, bringing real-world experience to risk recognition, crowd management and incident response.
Clear procedures and documentation sit at the heart of our deployments, from access control plans and emergency actions to incident reporting and post-event statistics. This provides venues and organisers with auditable evidence of due diligence while supporting continual improvement. Our services are fully scalable, from single-officer deployments to multi-disciplinary teams, allowing Martyn’s Law principles to be applied sensibly without unnecessary complexity or cost.
A Proportionate, Embedded Approach to Safety
Martyn’s Law is not about turning venues into fortresses. It is about awareness, preparedness and reasonable action to protect the public.
For venues and event organisers, the key takeaway is simple: security planning should be intentional, proportionate and embedded into normal operations, not reactive. At RSG, these principles already underpin how we plan, deploy and support our clients. As Martyn’s Law moves closer to implementation, organisations that work with experienced, compliance-focused providers will be best placed to meet both their legal responsibilities and their wider duty of care.
