ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE Martyn’s Law: Templates for UK Venues

The official guidance answers all of those questions, of course, but it’s lengthy and spread across several documents. Imperial Security has pulled everything together into 21 free templates, written for each sector and Tier, that take the reader through every requirement of the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025 one section at a time.

The Home Office will confirm the exact start date for the enforcement of Martyn’s Law, but the final guidance was issued in April. As such, preparations can begin now, while there’s still time to fully brief members of staff.

Downloading the templates 

Pick your sector and Tier and download your free template from Imperial Security’s Guide to Martyn’s Law. The sooner your plan is written down, the more time you have to practice it before the law’s enforced.

The templates are designed for general guidance. Whomever helps to prepare the paperwork, legal responsibility resides with the ‘Responsible Person’. Any finalised Enhanced Tier document describes how a site is protected. On that basis, it should be stored securely and never published.

What the templates cover 

The 21 templates cover 12 sectors, from pubs and nightclubs through to stadiums, hotels, healthcare, schools and outdoor festivals.

Schools, colleges, childcare settings and places of worship have a Standard Tier template only as the Act of Parliament keeps them in that Tier, however large in scale they may be. Outdoor events and festivals have an Enhanced Tier template only since an event is covered only from 800 people.

Each template opens with a cover page. Before every section, there’s a short guidance box with a worked example so that you can see what a good answer looks like. Then there’s a series of boxes into which the user types on screen. Users still need to tailor the finished document to their own premises, make sure members of staff can carry out the necessary activities and check it against the latest Security Industry Authority guidance.

Which Martyn’s Law Tier applies?

Martyn’s Law covers premises used for purposes listed in Schedule 1 of the Act of Parliament, such as shops, hospitality venues, sports arenas and education settings where 200 or more people can reasonably be expected at the same time. That figure includes staff, contractors, volunteers and agency door supervisors.

Number of people expected at once (including members of staff)            

*Fewer than 200 (Tier: Out of scope)

*200 to 799 (Tier: Standard Tier)

*800 or more (Tier: Enhanced Tier)

*800 or more at a school, college, childcare setting or place of worship (Tier: Standard Tier)

*Public event of 800 or more with entry checks, not held at an Enhanced Tier premises (Tier: Qualifying event, Enhanced Tier rules)

Venues should account for their busiest realistic times, such as Friday nights, match days or the January sales, and keep a record of how they reached the total figure as the Security Industry Authority can ask for the answer to that question.

Standard and Enhanced Tier duties 

Standard Tier premises managers must notify the Security Industry Authority that they’re responsible for the site. Under the notification regulations, that means within three months of the law starting, then within 28 days of any change, with no fee. A written plan is not legally required at this Tier, but the guidance advises one as evidence for the Security Industry Authority.

Premises management must also have four public protection procedures in place (so far as is reasonably practicable): evacuation, invacuation (ie moving people to a place of safety inside the building), lockdown and communication. Staff need to know the procedures and the part they’re expected to play in them.

Enhanced Tier premises and qualifying events must do all of that and three more things in addition:

*assess (and put in place) public protection measures covering monitoring, movement, physical safety and the security of information

*name a senior individual to oversee compliance where the ‘Responsible Person’ is a company or an organisation

*send the Security Industry Authority a written document setting out their procedures and measures and send each revised version within 30 days

A fire plan alone will not do. The guidance advises against using the fire alarm to start an evacuation during an attack episode and also warns that one fixed assembly point can put people at risk.

Johnny Harring is Operations Co-ordinator at Imperial Security (https://imperialsecurity.agency)