New requirements for public premises will increasingly influence project briefs and design decisions. However, considering security within a design is not the same as taking responsibility for assessing the threat.
The Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025, commonly known as Martyn’s Law, is intended to improve preparedness and protective security at certain publicly accessible premises and events.
The Act received Royal Assent in April 2025, but its substantive requirements have not yet come into force. The Government has published statutory guidance to help organisations understand the new regime and begin preparing for implementation.
So, what does Martyn’s Law mean for designers and the way we manage design risk?
Designers are not automatically responsible for assessing terrorism risk or setting a venue’s security strategy. In most cases, responsibility under the Act will sit with the individual or organisation controlling the premises for its relevant use.
However, design decisions can affect how effectively that organisation meets its future responsibilities.
The key is to consider these issues early enough for them to inform the brief and developing design, while keeping specialist security responsibilities with the right people.
Martyn’s Law establishes a tiered approach based on the use of the premises and the number of people who may reasonably be expected to be present.
The requirements focus principally on public protection procedures, including evacuation, invacuation, lockdown and communication. Enhanced-tier premises and qualifying events will also need to consider appropriate and reasonably practicable public protection measures relating to areas such as movement, monitoring, physical safety and security.
Although the operator will usually hold these responsibilities, the measures identified can affect the physical layout and use of space.
Access and egress, crowd movement, evacuation routes, vehicle approaches, visibility, landscaping, lighting, CCTV coverage and the positioning of security measures can all be influenced by decisions made during design.
If these requirements are only considered once a building or public space is complete, the available options may be limited, disruptive or costly.
Not every project will require hostile vehicle barriers or specialist counter-terrorism measures. The client and design team should establish whether the future premises is likely to fall within scope, what operational or specialist advice is required and whether the project brief needs to reflect it.
Martyn’s Law and the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 have different purposes, dutyholders and requirements. They should not be treated as interchangeable.
Under CDM 2015, designers must eliminate foreseeable risks to health and safety where reasonably practicable and, where that is not possible, take steps to reduce or control them. They must also provide relevant information about significant remaining risks.
On projects involving more than one contractor, the Principal Designer must plan, manage, monitor and coordinate health and safety during the pre-construction phase.
Martyn’s Law does not transfer responsibility for terrorism risk assessment to the CDM Principal Designer or wider design team. Nor should a designer provide specialist security advice outside their competence, appointment or professional indemnity cover.
There is, however, an important interface between the two regimes.
Where the client, operator or an appropriately competent security specialist identifies measures that affect the design, those requirements need to be coordinated. Designers must understand what they are being asked to incorporate, how it interacts with other design considerations and whether it introduces further risks.
For example, a security measure intended to restrict vehicle access could affect pedestrian movement, emergency access, maintenance activity or inclusive access. Changes to evacuation or invacuation arrangements could influence circulation, capacity and the use of internal and external spaces.
These are coordination issues. Designers need input from the right people, but they are not responsible for setting the original security requirements.
For work at an existing premises, the client’s operational, facilities management and health and safety teams can provide a valuable starting point.
They may already hold information about:
Current access and visitor-management arrangements;
Known security concerns or previous incidents;
Existing CCTV, lighting and monitoring measures;
Emergency, evacuation, invacuation and lockdown procedures;
Crowd or vehicle movements;
Vunerable areas and operational restrictions; and
Measures that work well or create practical difficulties.
The Principal Designer and designers can help the client bring this information into the pre-construction process and identify where it affects the developing design.
This does not replace advice from a competent security specialist. It helps establish the existing position, understand how the premises operates and develop a more informed brief before specialist measures are assessed.
The design brief can then distinguish between existing controls that should be retained, arrangements that need to change and matters requiring specialist advice under the emerging Martyn’s Law requirements.
Involving the people who manage the premises also helps avoid designing measures that appear suitable on paper but do not work operationally.
One of the biggest risks for design teams is allowing responsibilities to become unclear.
A designer may identify that security needs attention, but that does not mean they are competent to assess threats, determine protection levels or specify specialist products.
A clearer approach is to establish:
For specialist security features, the source of the requirement and specification should remain clear. If a designer is asked to show a security measure on a drawing, this should not make them responsible for determining whether it provides the required level of protection.
The appointment, scope, design responsibility matrix, brief and project information should all be consistent.
Where does Secure by Design fit?
Designers may already consider security through Secured by Design, the police-led initiative that promotes crime prevention through the design and layout of buildings and places.
Input from a police Designing Out Crime Officer can help design teams consider matters such as access control, surveillance, lighting, landscaping, boundaries and movement through a site, often through planning-stage consultation.
This can provide a useful foundation for considering public safety and security within the design. However, Secured by Design and Martyn’s Law are not the same.
Secured by Design primarily focuses on reducing crime through good design. Martyn’s Law introduces a separate framework concerned with preparedness for terrorist attacks and reducing the risk of physical harm at qualifying premises and events.
Similarly, Approved Document Q supports the Building Regulations requirement for reasonable provision to resist unauthorised access to new dwellings. Its scope is much narrower than the operational and public protection considerations arising from Martyn’s Law.
Design teams should understand how these requirements and good-practice approaches relate to one another without assuming that addressing one automatically satisfies the others.
Martyn’s Law adds another dimension. It may require the client and future operator to consider procedures and measures in greater depth, with some of those decisions then influencing the design.
Should Martyn’s Law appear in the CDM risk register?
Simply adding “Martyn’s Law” to a CDM risk register does not demonstrate compliance.
A risk register should support decisions rather than become a list of legislation. It should record relevant project-specific issues, the action required and the party responsible for resolving them.
Where appropriate, this could include:
Some issues may be better recorded in a project action tracker, security strategy or design responsibility matrix rather than the CDM risk register. The right location is the one that gives the matter clear ownership and ensures it is followed through.
Recording a security issue without identifying who is competent and appointed to resolve it can create the appearance of control without the substance.
Early questions are more valuable than late solutions
One of the most valuable contributions a designer or CDM Principal Designer can make is to ask the right questions early.
Has the intended operator been involved in the brief? What can the existing facilities management and health and safety teams tell the project team? Is the expected capacity understood? Has the client considered whether the premises will fall within scope? Is specialist advice required? Are security requirements affecting the developing design? Is it clear who owns the assessment and specification?
These questions help clients identify gaps before layouts, access strategies and public spaces become fixed.
The Government’s guidance makes clear that the Act is intended to operate alongside other legal requirements, including health and safety, fire safety and equality legislation. Project teams will therefore need to coordinate these considerations rather than address each one in isolation.
Good design risk management adds value by bringing the right expertise into the conversation and making sure agreed requirements are translated into coordinated design decisions.
Martyn’s Law is new, but the underlying principle is familiar: define responsibilities, obtain competent advice where required and consider design implications while there is still time to act.
Designers do not need to become security specialists. Their role is to recognise when security requirements affect the design, establish where the necessary advice will come from and coordinate agreed measures without assuming responsibilities that properly sit elsewhere.
Article written by Karl Tindale, Associate, Construction Safety at Safer Sphere.
We help clients, Principal Designers and project teams establish clear CDM arrangements, identify design risk interfaces and coordinate health and safety throughout the pre-construction phase.
This includes helping clients bring together existing operational information, clarify responsibilities and identify where security requirements may affect the design or require specialist input.
If you would like to understand how Martyn’s Law could affect a current or future project, speak to our Construction Safety team.
