After last week’s heritage resilience conference by Andy Davis of Trident Manor, at Redworth Hall Hotel in County Durham (pictured), Mark Rowe offers some reflections.
Consider some of the physical world and cyber cases in Professional Security Magazine and the news generally in 2024 – the cutting down of a much-loved tree (as featured in the Kevin Costner film Robin Hood – Prince of Thieves) on Hadrian’s Wall; an October 2024 cyber attack that disrupted services for months at the British Library, and which forced the Library to go back to some paper processes – and which, as chief exec Sir Roly Keating blogged this month, ‘affected almost every aspect of our public service’; and items going missing from the British Museum, and the long-winded response by those in charge at the Museum. Sites, landscapes and items of cultural importance abound in Britain and globally; when they’re damaged, or gone, they are not replaceable like a bottle of spirits on some retail shelf.
Cultural heritage can shade into entire city centres, and the preservation of their fabric can shade into management of the urban environment and response to climate change. Historic centres typically are on the coast or beside river crossings, and are at risk of flooding or rising sea levels.
That implies that the preservation of culture, whether inside museums, galleries and archives, or the very buildings that house artefacts, is not only a question of security of properties against human malice – thieves, vandals, and arsonists; or even young people taking advantage of historic sites to take drugs and have illicit sex. Sites and their contents have to be protected against natural risks, such as fires, heavy rainfall, even dust, micro-organisms or rodents. There’s no point in protecting artefacts behind security glass, or in a locked basement store, if they go underwater due to a river in flood.
Also implied is that museums and art galleries, archives and theatres, should band together; as they already do for lending and borrowing items from their collections, which requires secure and safe transport. The proposed Martyn’s Law that will place a legal responsibility on premises to take steps to counter terrorism will apply to many cultural properties, that have a capacity of 200 or more and that increasingly look to hold events, for the income stream; Martyn’s Law as expressed so far applies to each premises, yet risks to premises may come from neighbours, even unrelated ones.
Take the museums in South Kensington (which through a business resilience forum are already doing more than most to plan for and respond to common risks). What if South Kensington Underground station has to shut, for whatever reason? While the museums still have electricity, their IT services and so on, they may soon notice a drying up of visitors through the door, who cannot attend (at all, or when they intended to arrive – museums increasingly seeking visitors to book a time slot, so that the sheer volume of visitors can be managed). Besides, how is the next shift of security and other staff to reach the site, or get home? (While the bus may be the mode of transport of choice for security and other service workers, as they’re cheaper than the Tube and more door to door, you can still find as I do security people in London who only know the Underground – in any case, the example holds good – what if buses are out of use, through strike action?). Another risk may be vibration and noise (due to some building work nearby). Cultural protection has to be thorough and for the long term, so as to pass on the property to the next generation for upkeep.
Those working in the ‘cultural sector’ may (as one speaker put it) feel like and act as if they are working in a ‘happy bubble’ (although enough income is a concern, particularly if relying on money from local government, which faces a further round of belt-tightening; and Security as a non-core function may be a department at risk, even if fewer guards or invigilators, or a delayed technical upgrade to video surveillance and alarms, adds to risk of theft). Like world cricket in the 2000s, those in charge of cultural institutions may feel that – because they are reasonably-minded and love where they work and are surrounded by the like-minded – it’s unthinkable that anyone may wish them harm, whether terrorists or protesters. In truth both are drawn to the cultural institution (including sport) because it’s so famous and sure to give the terror or protest cause publicity.
Hence on Friday the change in security search at the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, London, as ‘no liquids can be brought into the National Gallery’, as a response to five separate attacks on paintings since July 2022, for example by Just Stop Oil over two of Vincent Van Gogh’s Sunflowers.
