Damage Control
Published: 06 October, 2011
The August 2011 riots hit retailers and retail destinations across the country. What can be done to lessen their impact in the event of a recurrence?
The riots that ravaged London and other parts of the country at the beginning of August have hit the retail industry hard. Of the 32 London boroughs, 22 were affected, with other breakouts across the country in places like Birmingham, Manchester and Nottingham.
There were 500 crime scenes and a 400 per cent increase in 999 calls, many of which came from the retail industry, faced with criminal damage and looting, and a main target for the rioters. Insurance claims have been estimated at over £200m.
Speaking at the City Security and Resilience Networks (CSARN) UK Riot Briefing last month, Lord Toby Harris, who was head of Haringey council during the Tottenham riots of 1985, spoke of the renewed threat of rioting.
“Is this a new normality or a once every 25 year occurrence? And to what degree is such an event predictable?” he asks. “It could be every 25 years but equally it could happen again in two months or even two weeks.”
With hundreds of millions of pounds worth of property damaged and several thousand shops and business still not open, his worry is the affect on local economies.
“We are entering a period of quite substantial global unrest and more riots are likely,” he says. “This will be a serious challenge for the next few years and we need to prepare and plan.”
The riots have forced businesses to look at their security processes and equipment, initiating debate about how best to keep businesses running smoothly in such circumstances. And it has forced many to re-think certain aspects of their security and operation, from CCTV, to safety procedures, glass specification and the backing up of IT systems. Something which could prove to be a silver lining in the long-run.
With most of the criminal damage suffered by the retail industry caused as a result of smashed glass - giving the rioters free rein to loot - and fire, having robust fire safety procedures in place and installing the right type of glass could make all the difference.
Many shops were torched during the unrest, including Miss Selfridge in Manchester, the Reeves furniture shop in Croydon – which, it transpired, was set on fire to distract police away from main shopping areas where looting was taking place - and a Sony warehouse in Enfield. With fire services inundated with calls and fire engines having trouble reaching certain areas, response times were slow, impacting on the damage.
Paul Hayden, director of Resolve Networks, describes fire as the main threat to businesses. In England and Wales alone, fire losses cost £53m each week.
“A building will usually stay standing if a fire takes hold, but when accelerants are used, fire can spread very quickly,” says Hayden. “Once insurance has been settled and the store re-built, it might re-open and find that their customers have gone elsewhere and it’s no longer a viable business.
“Very simple housekeeping can reduce risks. In shopping centres, movable wheelie bins and pallets provide opportunities for vandals, so move them away from easily accessible areas and try not to have flammable stock on display near the windows.”
He advises reviewing fire plans whilst taking stock of practical and regulatory issues. But he’s keen to remind people that fire risk assessments are designed to protect people and not stock.
“There are practical solutions,” he says. “Simple things like keeping fire extinguishers and first aid kits maintained and keeping escape routes clear will go a long way.
“Most businesses don’t have good enough precautions - evaluate and react to the risks impacting your business. Think about the additional things your staff could do and look for because if they’re not trained properly, they won’t know how to react. It’s cheaper to do something now rather than to wait and do nothing.”
Following a significant rise in enquiries as a result of the riots, glass processors, ESG, urge specifiers to act with caution when choosing security glass.
“In the wake of the riots which caused considerable damage in a relatively short amount of time, it is clear just how much caution needs to be exercised when identifying the right type of fire and security glass,” says Scott Sinden, managing director of ESG. “Those specifying for retail outlets in particular, will be under increasing pressure to identify products that will perform exactly as expected.
“Our advice to anybody involved in the specification process is to avoid simply taking a product at face value. Do not be afraid to challenge glass manufacturers.”
Third party certification of security glass is the best way to ensure quality. Glass certified to LPS 1270 offers proven levels of protection against forced entry. (A list of Secured By Design approved security glass standards, suppliers and certifiers can be found on www.securedbydesign.com).
With IT and data storage a huge part of any modern business, making sure those systems are protected if an emergency occurs should be high on the priority list.
“The recent riots in our cities shocked everyone, and UK shopping centres were at the epicentre of the troubles,” says Richard Fountain, managing director at IT support provider ITVet, who advises implementing a disaster recovery (DR) plan.
“Businesses these days rely heavily on their IT, so any impact to it can have major consequences,” he explains. “Yet amazingly up to 40 per cent of UK businesses do not even back up their data properly. This is all the more worrying given the fact that around 75 per cent of businesses which experience a total loss of data, never recover.”
As “the heartbeat of a centre” Fountain highlights that centre management teams must be kept operational in extraordinary circumstances. And that the systems that provide back-up support need to be resilient, flexible and able to cope in extreme events.
“Even if management offices were inaccessible or completely out of action, management staff, by the use of remote based working, need to have access to systems and data, so that they can co-ordinate a swift recovery,” he says.
One of ITVet’s clients is Whiteleys shopping centre in Bayswater, London – one of the shopping centres directly affected by the riots. As part of the system specified by ITVet calls and emails can be diverted at short notice, meaning that Whiteleys’ employees can work remotely from home if necessary, and critical data is backed up to a secure offsite location.
Aside from DR plans, a Major Incident Management (MIM) plan is something advocated by Elizabeth Steele, retail active management at DTZ in Birmingham.
A MIM plan strives to make sure everyone is aware of their role in emergency circumstances.
“The plan defines an individual’s role, how they coordinate with others and provides a single point of reference in case of any doubt,” explains Steele.
“A MIM plan should be readily available for all those named within it, wherever they are. This may mean hard copies being circulated, or an online facility which is easily accessible. It should foresee as many types of incident as possible, and be flexible enough to adapt to the unforeseen.”
She advises seeking advice from a third party expert to help you plan effectively, saying: “The relatively minor cost of seeking professional input may be an excellent way of mitigating a much bigger bill.”
Brett Lovegrove is CSARN director and former head of counter terrorism for the City of London Police.
His advice, should further riots occur, is to liaise with your local police service and monitor open-sources, such a social media, because you can’t always rely on police communication.
“Riots are not new,” he says. “We’ve established that riots are going to happen again, we don’t know when but we do have a time to reflect and devise precautions.”
