On Sunday 12 November, West Midlands Police and the emergency services including WMAS took part in a live play training exercise at the Bullring and Grand Central, Birmingham.
This was a pre-planned exercise to test the response of all emergency partners to a major incident, and was not in response to any specific threat or intelligence.
West Midlands Police works closely with public and private organisations to provide advice on protective security and what to do in the event of an incident. They were approached by Hammerson, who manage both the Bullring and Grand Central, to help them test out their security plans.
Assistant Chief Constable Gareth Cann said:
“This is the latest in a series of exercises that we have carried out to test our ability to deal with large scale incidents. Recent national and international events highlight the importance of public organisations testing their emergency response procedures to reassure the safety of the communities we serve.
The UK threat level remains at severe which means that an attack is highly likely, although there is no specific threat to our region it is imperative that we are ready to deal with such an attack if required.
I would like to thank everyone who took part in the exercise, particularly the Bullring and Grand Central.”
Graham Williams, Hammerson’s Portfolio Security Manager, commented:
“As the owner and manager of a number of leading retail destinations, we have robust security procedures in place, which are constantly reviewed. We already have a close working relationship with West Midlands Police and we welcome the opportunity to work together on major training exercises such as this, to test and measure our responses to major incidents alongside other emergency service partners.”
The exercise provided invaluable training and experience for everyone involved. It also demonstrated the strong working relationships between West Midlands Police, West Midlands Fire Service, West Midlands Ambulance Service including WMAS HART Teams, Birmingham City Council, Network Rail, British Transport Police and our commercial partners.”