The 2012 Olympic Games will present London and the UK at large with an unprecedented security challenge, say organisers of a conference in London in October.
Entitled ‘Secure London’, the conference will run on October 28 and 29, at the Guoman Hotel, London. The event has the support of the London Chamber of Commerce, London First, Cava Media, the Metropolitan Police, 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.
The threat of a chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear event (CBRNE) 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, Head of CBRN, Metropolitan Police.
Planning for the Olympics has to accommodate extreme measures such as the mass evacuation of London. The 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 Ltd, formerly Head of Counter Terrorism of the City of London Police and a member of the Defence and Security Committee of the London Chamber of Commerce & Industry, will be presenting on the vital need for resilience analysis to identify gaps in organisation’ processes, policies and people.
Past sporting disasters in the UK and overseas have underlined the vital importance of effective crowd control and Prof Keith Still, Director, 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 will be speaking 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 and from crime.
Mumbai is another major city that has suffered high profile terrorist attacks. Narinder Nayar, Chairman of Bombay First, will describe how the city is working towards building a complete resilience response. Other topics tackled in the 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.
For the organisers, Shephard Group, Alex Giles said, “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 as lessons that should be learned from previous events, be they triumphs or disasters. ‘Secure London’ will bring intense focus on how the capital must prepare for hosting the 2012 Olympics. It is a model that we see being taken up by other cities around the world in the years ahead.” For details visit –
