Martyn's Law
Martyn’s Law
Overview
The Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act or Martyn’s Law received Royal Assent on 3rdApril 2025. This has set in motion the implementation period for an estimated 24 months to allow the guidelines to be issued and venues to work on their compliance, self-register/self-report and most importantly train staff. Martyn’s Law will have a huge impact on venues and public places, how they manage safety and security and who takes responsibility for appropriate public protection procedures. The procedures specifically relate to evacuation, moving people to a safe place, lockdown procedures and the ability to communicate with individuals inside the premises from outside organisations offering emergency assistance.
The aim of Martyn’s Law is to give an extra layer of protection in the event of a terrorist attack and to make the UK more resilient by encouraging all people to undertake training in protecting our nation and our people and having life skills to help in the event of an incident.
Martyn’s law comes from the tireless work of Figen Murray, mother of Martyn Hett who tragically lost his life at the Arianda Grande concert in Manchester Arena attack in May 2017. It introduces a series of requirements for venue operators with a capacity of 200 or more to have an evacuation policy and for venues with capacity of 800 people or more there will be greater restrictions enforced.
The enforcement will be managed by a new established working group within the SIA (Security Industry Association) who will regulate venues having procedures in place to minimise risk to life. Venues will have to comply by the self-registration programme.
We anticipate that all venues will have to look at installing a voice alarm/evacuation system in the future to comply with legislation as bell sounding systems will not meet the requirements of lockdown, evacuation and safe place initiatives.
However, it is important at this stage that we address that the legislation guidelines are yet to be published and there will be exemptions to the law that will de defined in this document (due Autumn 2025) and therefore organisations can begin to prepare but not speculate the scope of the legislation.
Why are Standards so important?
In order to ensure quality and expertise in design and installation public address and voice evacuation systems are regulated to British Standards which should be adhered to. There are two standards that apply.
BS EN 50849 requires BS-EN54 certified components that are suitable for use a Sound System for Emergency Purpose (SSEP). A SSEP is a public address audio system that can deliver emergency messages but is not connected to a fire system.
BS-5839-8: 2023 is the standard in the UK that should be adhered to if the system is a public address and voice alarm system that also connects to the fire alarm system. Installations must use independently certified EN-54 products, it is a legal requirement for power supplies, control and indicating equipment and speakers to be EN-54 certificated by a 3rd party approved body.
Why do we need Martyn’s Law now and what will it do?
Since 2017 in the UK there have been 15 domestic terror attacks and 43 plots that have been discovered fortunately before they had been acted upon.
Terrorism has no defined location and is constantly evolving so the Law will ensure, that in the event of an incident, venues are better prepared and are more able to control the situation and ultimately save lives.
It is intended for premises owners to think about what would happen if they were subject to an attack and have in place a clear emergency plan with trained personnel to deal with that plan.
It will enable venue owners to think about being better prepared, able to respond and have a practicable plan and the equipment in place to aid this.
The law will mandate who is responsible at the venue and what their planned response would be.
Support will be provided from government agencies to aid the process and ensure there are clear plans in place for evacuation, stay put options or a lockdown depending on the incident.
Venues will have to have multi plan options in place depending on the type of event and number of people and these will have to be self-reported/self-registered to the SIA.
Martyn’s Law and TOA
At TOA we have always been an advocate of safety and the use voice evacuation not only as a manufacturer but also as part of our global declaration of social contribution. We ensure that we continue to learn and develop as an organisation to ensure TOA products keep people safe.
All TOA systems are uniquely designed for individual projects, and it is important that when we are advising installers and the end-user that they understand our principles for our life safety systems that they are:
- A system that is multi-purpose, delivering daily communication and emergency announcements.
- A system that, in the event of an incident, should be easy to trigger messages, either pre-recorded or live, to save valuable time.
- Provide excellent intelligibility and clarity of sound.
- A system that can connect emergency responders directly to the incident area and management points.
- A system that provides completely integrated product solutions ensuring system robustness and the ability for expansion.
TOA Voice Alarm Systems can be used not only in the event of a fire, but for general announcements, background music and lockdown messages in the event of an intruder. Our systems can be zoned to deliver different information to multi areas allowing emergency responders to have great control of situations.
At TOA we take life safety very seriously. We never want to hear that one of our systems has not delivered in an emergency. Our technical team are here to help and support projects with their extensive knowledge of regulations coupled with their design capabilities and full training offer in 100V line and Voice Alarm Systems and Regulations.
We will also ensure, as part of our ongoing staff development, that all our team will undertake any government training that is available to support Martyn’s Law and the wider community and that the safety of people is at the forefront of what we do. We will continue to use our knowledge to advise and educate our clients and continue, as a leader in our field, to speak in the wider media, at events and online about the importance of evacuation.
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