This latest ruling only served to underline what has been said in the shopping centre industry for years: It’s only a question of time. “You have to assume that it isn’t a matter of if but when,” says Martin Taylor, chair of the BCSC security and safer shopping committee when asked about the current threat to the UK’s shopping malls. “And you’ve got to prepare for the moment when it is your centre that’s under attack,” he warns.

Nonetheless, there can be no denying that the terrorist threat has changed over the past decade or so. Since the bombing of the Manchester Arndale in 1996 (pictured, looking spectacular in its post-bomb guise), the shopping centre industry has escaped relatively unscathed. Subsequently, the attempted bombing of a Giraffe restaurant at the then-new Princesshay centre in Exeter gave the industry the wake-up call it needed, says Stewart McConnell, security manager at Westfield’s Castlecourt shopping centre in Belfast, which was attacked as it was being built.

And contrary to popular belief, it is not just the large regional centres that are at risk. While the small, local centres may not be perceived as likely a target for terrorist activity as a large regional centre such as Lakeside or Bluewater, there exists a very real risk for all malls and indeed the towns in which they are situated. Incidents such as the failed attempt at Princesshay demonstrate that it is not only premier league centres that are at risk and that none should be complacent about security. “I think that’s the key – it could affect anyone in any location,” recognises Paul Haynes, centre manager at the new Arc complex in Bury St Edmunds. “That’s why I think it is important that, irrespective of the size of the centre, you do get your people trained up as a preventative measure.”

Castlecourt’s McConnell agrees that a centre of any size could fall victim to a terrorist attack. As he explains, shopping centres are good targets for terrorists because such an attack is guaranteed to “make the headlines and it’s a multiple kill. It’s a place where large numbers of people congregate to shop and socialise and for these particular people the more civilian casualties they can have the better as it ups their profile.” As a result, no mall of any size in any location can afford to be unenthusiastic in its approach to security. “One [centre] will make as much headlines as the other, the body count will just be slightly different,” McConnell explains.

CHANGING TIMES

The Exeter attack was also testament to the changing face of terrorism in the UK, says McConnell. “This gives you some indication of the type of people these terrorists will use – in this case it was someone who was educationally sub-normal – to carry out these ruthless acts,” he says. There is a very different threat in the UK to that posed in Northern Ireland, he continues. “There is a bigger problem in England with Al-Qaeda than we have in Northern Ireland. In general, in Northern Ireland we would have had warning, either by direct means from the particular group involved or through a party such as the Samaritans. So we’re not so concerned about suicide bombers,” McConnell continues.

However, this doesn’t mean that Castlecourt is off scot-free. A couple of months ago the Belfast mall received four bomb threats in one week. “The troubles in Northern Ireland have diminished significantly over the last number of years, but we still get plenty of things happening,” he admits. Nonetheless, McConnell and his team continue to deal with such eventualities calmly and with the minimum of fuss and there are clear processes in place. Security patrols swap position every hour and at the beginning of each ‘shift’ they thoroughly check their new zone for suspect packages or anybody behaving suspiciously. If, as is sometimes the case, the centre receives warning that a device has been planted in the mall, all the retailers are contacted and are responsible for searching their premises. “We’ve got 100 retail units here – how would you search all those as well as department stores like Debenhams? It’s just impossible, so you involve the retailers.”

A decision to evacuate the centre cannot be taken lightly though, as it can prove disastrous for already struggling retailers. Castlecourt, for example, won’t evacuate the centre on the basis of a coded message, only when a suspicious item is found. Broadmead shopping centre in Bristol was evacuated on one of the busiest shopping days of the calendar at the end of last year and is still counting the cost. The crisis unfolded after a CCTV operator caught sight of an aluminium case under a bench in the centre. As a result, around 65 recession-hit retailers had to close their doors for more than three hours.

THE FALL-OUT

While the impact on retailers of an unnecessary evacuation is profound, the ramifications of a bonafide attack are far more severe. While there were thankfully no fatalities, more than 400 businesses in a half-mile radius of Manchester city centre were affected by the Manchester Arndale attack in 2006 and the Home Office claimed that 40 per cent of those businesses never recovered. Elsewhere terrorist activity by the IRA has cost the country billions of pounds – the total cost of loss of business and damage after the attacks in the City of London in 1992 was estimated to be £1bn.

The government is keen to avoid such expense again. As a result it has poured investment into a plethora of anti-terrorism programmes. In April, security minister Lord West announced an additional £5m funding to help protect the public from the threat of terrorist attacks in private places. This built on the government’s revised counter terrorism strategy – CONTEST – which was published in March 2009.

At the time of the announcement Lord West acknowledged that protecting the public against the terrorist threat requires input from all stakeholders – not just the authorities. “This is not a job for the government or police alone. We will achieve this by better engaging local authorities, local partners and in particular businesses to encourage them to implement counter-terrorist security advice,” he advised.

JOINED-UP THINKING

Ensuring a close relationship with all stakeholders is absolutely key to ensuring a watertight security strategy, says Paul Haynes, centre manager at Bury St Edmunds’ new Arc centre. The Arc has partnered with St Edmundsbury Borough Council and local police forces to ensure retailers, located both in and out of the Arc complex, have an anti-terrorism strategy in place. The centre is also involved with Project Argus, a National Counter Terrorism Security Office (NaCTSO) initiative which educates businesses about preventing, handling and recovering from a terrorist attack. NaCTSO also co-ordinates a nationwide network of specialist police advisors known as Counter Terrorist Security Advisors (CTSAs) who can offer help on counter terrorism security.

As a stalwart in the realm of shopping centre security, McConnell is adamant that a partnership approach is the best way to tackle the thorny issue of terrorism. “Each particular town has its own resilience plan where all the agencies have a town or city plan to deal with a major incident,” he explains. “There is a resilience plan in Belfast to deal with any major incident whether it be casualties or structural damage.” The BCSC’s Martin Taylor agrees: “I would very much hope that most shopping centres are part of local partnerships which involve the local authorities, the police, the fire service and so on. In terms of emergency planning, that is something which I hope is going on up and down the country,” he recommends.

IN DESIGN

In addition, there are now also guidelines for companies designing and building shopping centres. Argus Professional is a recent initiative which aims to heighten the awareness of people designing shopping centres to encourage them to assess the risks and then design the mall while taking those risks into consideration. Elements of so-called ‘security-by-design’ have certainly been taken into account during the building and opening of new premier league centres in recent years. “Particular centres are taking special care over anti-terrorist planning,” says Taylor. “For example the new scheme in Liverpool and Cabot Circus in Bristol have all got elements designed-in which try to reduce the risk of or consequences of a terrorist attack,” he says. Increasing stand-off to keep vehicles away from buildings is one way to reduce the risk to shopping malls, says CTSA Ian Fordham. “The bigger the gap the less impact any device would have potentially.”

At the Arc in Bury St Edmunds, careful measures were taken to reduce the risk of a terrorist attack. “This is a scheme that the architects thought through really well because there are not what I’d describe as hidy holes where vehicles with devices could be kept or areas that could potentially be utilised for wrongdoing,” centre manager Haynes explains. “It’s been designed with safety in mind and the architects have done a good job designing the structure of the buildings to make it as security conscious as possible.”

However, the responsibility doesn’t just lie with shopping centre owners, architects and shop-fitters, but retailers too. “Tenants who are putting in their own shop fronts, for example, can put film on glass to ensure it is less of a hazard in the event of an explosion,” explains Haynes. CTSAs usually recommend that this kind of laminated glass is fitted wherever possible in public space buildings, explains Fordham. “That’s purely because the laminate film that’s fitted to the glass will lessen the likelihood of it shattering and sending shards of glass into the crowded place. Flying glass is the biggest cause of casualties in a bomb blast,” he says.

However, there is more to shopping centre security than the design aspect, says BCSC executive director Ed Cooke. The BCSC recently expressed concerns that the Working Together To Protect Crowded Places report, which was published jointly by the Home Office and the Department for Communities and Local Government, suggested measures which could cause delays to retail schemes and would impose an unwelcome financial burden on developers. “There needs to be a series of options not focused solely on capital investment. It’s not just design initiatives that are going to prevent terrorist attacks,” Cooke says.

Printer friendly version

Email this article to a friend

Bookmark this

---