Police on Thursday admitted they were too slow in telling small businesses what was happening during this summer's riots in London, promising to keep them better informed about any emergencies during next year's Olympics. Pictures of looters targeting shops, walking away laden with electrical goods such as flat-screen televisions or bottles of alcohol, were beamed around the world, with their owners often seemingly helpless.
"We recognise we didn't always get it right during the riots in terms of the speed of our messaging, so we're taking these things into account," the Met's Detective Chief Superintendent Alaric Bonthron said at an Olympic conference for small-and-medium sized businesses. "One of my roles will be to make sure we get messages out quickly where required."
He urged businesses to sign up to a messaging system comprising e-mail and text messages that would provide fast-time communications across the capital. One shopkeeper, who did not want to be named, said the first he heard about the riots was when he turned on his television.
"It would be nice just to be told if there is any trouble anywhere," he told Reuters. Hannah Holdroyd, London development manager for the Federation of Small Businesses, said she welcomed the fact police had recognised their failings and learnt from them, but added: "Messages need to be consistent regarding the size of business." Bonthron said police had provided information to businesses during the riots but they were "just a bit too slow".
"We need to tell them what is happening so they can make risk-based assessment on their own particular company about what they want to do," he told Reuters. "We're going back through all those things to say 'right what do we need to do differently next year', because it will be much faster next year, the pace of requests, because of the scale of the Games."
Information will range from risks including terrorism and pandemics, and how small businesses can prepare. Businesses consistently cite security as one of their top concerns in the run-up to the London Olympics. Security services are working on the basis of a severe threat level, meaning a militant attack is considered highly likely. A three-day exercise took place this week testing command information flows for a heatwave scenario.