Martyn's Law - Manchester City Council
2020
At a meeting on Wednesday 15th January, Manchester City Council’s Executive will be asked to take steps to adopt ‘Martyn’s law’, making them the first Council in the Country to do so.
On 22nd May 2017, 22 people tragically lost their lives and many more were seriously injured as a result of the Manchester Arena bombing. Subsequently Figen Murray the parent of one of the deceased Martyn Hett has campaigned to improve the security at event venues through the introduction of ‘Martyns law’.
The Executive will be asked to endorse Figen’s campaign to improve public safety and security; and to further endorse proposed changes to Licensing conditions.
The proposed changes outlined in the Committee’s report will then be put to the Licensing Committee for approval and formal adoption into Manchester’s Licensing Policy.
In the absence of any formal change to the legislation, Manchester are not able to require licensed venues to put in place all measures advocated in Martyn’s Law. However, the Council could implement a degree of control through their Licensing Policy, with the potential to introduce policies that seek to impose counter-terrorism specific conditions on licences granted. However, it remains that each applications would still need to be considered on their individual merits.
Conditions could be attached to applications for new licences or variation so existing licences, if relevant representations are made.
Although the legislation does not allow for conditions to be retrospectively applied Operators may be asked to voluntarily incorporate new conditions. The report recommends ‘proactively engaging with the license trade’ in this regard.
We shall keep you updated.