Now landing on desks is the latest, October 2021, print edition of Professional Security magazine; that you can also freely read online, at the ‘magazine‘ section of the website, writes Mark Rowe.
We’ve taken advantage of the lifting of covid-safety restrictions since the summer to get out and about again, to talk to industry people about how the lockdowns have been for them; and how they’re carrying on doing security, when still requiring the showing of covid vaccination is routine for entry to theatres, exhibitions and for overseas travel, and so on, yet only adding to the queues at entrances – which itself can create a security risk. Given the likelihood of a Protect duty coming into force by law next year, we bring you some industry views on what that legal requirement to take responsibility for customers and visitors against terrorism may mean for security managers and planners.
We report from the IAASF conference on arts, antiquities and heritage security, run by Andy Davis of Trident Manor in Darlington; there we learned that the threats to the nation’s cultural stuff – millions of items from precious works of art to entire buildings – are not only from theft, and fire, and flooding, but wear and tear and even direct sunlight.
We continue our look at local government, public space CCTV, which is seeing some spending, even into seven figures, by councils as they look to update their ageing kit to digital. Something new for the council CCTV manager, of wider use and interest for anyone to do with the high street, is some ‘guidance for local authority CCTV system owners and police forces to work towards when compiling service level agreements‘, from the Surveillance Camera Commissioner. We sat in on a session hosted by the Security TWENTY show at Manchester in the summer, that went through that guidance document, and what it can mean for on-street crime detection and investigation.
Wilson Chowdhry, director of the guarding company AA Security, writes for us again, this month recalling the need for training when the country was in a lockdown – but how to train new officers, when classroom learning that we took for granted pre-covid was not an option?
As ever there’s something for everyone in the magazine, whether your work is as an installer, end user, consultant or specifier, or whatever your sector – commercial or other. We go through the annual report of the UK nuclear power regulator for example, for what it has to say about security.
Plus MD Roy Cooper’s gossip about and for manufacturers and distributors of security products, hailing the magazine’s latest ST21 event, in Belfast in September; four pages of new products and services; and four pages of ‘spending the budget’.
If you would like to see a print copy – email your postal address to [email protected].
Image: an embroidery of the Cenotaph in London, by William Wright (1887-1951) of Midway, Derbyshire, who was an amputee as a result of service in the 1914-18 war. The embroidery he took up while recovering from his injuries. This and other mementoes were donated by his family to the Magic Attic local history centre in Swadlincote, Derbyshire; image taken with permission.
