Front Cover:Front Cover - Grandflame Ltd

NEWS REVIEWMOBILE BARRIERSCROWD CONTROL EXACTLY WHERE IT’S NEEDEDOldbury UK’s mobile scene and incidentmanagement barrier offers operational flexibilityfor venue crowd control and public safety.Recent years have seen step changesin public safety and securityregulation - particularly at publicvenues - and concurrently, there has beenincreasing recognition of the evolving natureof threat. Onerous obligations now rest onclubs and venues relating to their duty of careand the provision of crowd safety andprotection. Compliance with theserequirements - not to ignore the associatedcosts - now poses a major challenge for thesports and events industry.The boards and senior management of venues– from the smaller clubs right through to themajor national and international arenas, now facethe difficult task of balancing best practice crowdsafety and control with an appropriate andproportionate level of risk management… and allwithin budgets which are increasingly underpressure. Specifically in the UK, where there is acurrent preoccupation with the build-up to 2012 -with all the added security implications whichare incumbent upon an Olympic host - the issuesare front of mind in every boardroom.Earlier this year, a UK West Midlands-basedspecialist trailer and mobile solutionsengineering company, Oldbury UK, rolled out afully mobile crowd management barrier package.It is poised to become an important addition tothe equipment inventory used to support thesafe and effective management, control andprotection of big crowds of spectators or largeevent audiences. The barrier is fabricated as asolid steel (or other sheet material) panelstructure and designed to provide a stable, foldout and fully adjustable screen or temporarycordon. Importantly, it can be easily manoeuvredinto position by no more than two operativesand fully deployed in around four minutes.Units can be connected together in series, toenclose or isolate a wider area and featuresinclude an access door, viewing windows andflap-over anti-scaling overhangs. The designalso includes drop-down steel legs, front andrear, to provide additional stability. The baseunit fully deployed has a maximum width of13.5 metres and an overall height, with the antiscalingoverhangs deployed, of 2.5 metres. Theunit closes down into a compact transport modewith an overall length of 5.7 metres, includingthe towing hitch and a width of just 2.3 metres.The design of most of today’s modern footballstadia and sports arenas benefit from many ofthe normal control, safety and security systemsbeing built into the infrastructure - but these arepermanent fixtures. For the older venues, theinstallation of upgrades or additional crowdcontrol and security equipment can be a costlyand disruptive operation. But even where fixedbarriers and fences are installed, there can still bea requirement for the additional flexibilityoffered by the mobile barrier solution, especiallyat specialist events. The nature and content ofevents themselves can vary as well, particularlywhen it comes to marshalling and processinghigh volumes of people in a comparatively shortspace of time. Of course, the whole characteristicand crowd dynamics at any event can changeagain, suddenly and dramatically, in the event ofan emergency or major incident - and the abilityto rapidly deploy additional protection anywhereon site could be critical.Oldbury’s experience in these specialistsectors includes the design and build of mobilescene and incident management and crowdcontrol barriers for both civil and militaryagencies. Contingency planning and reserveresources for rapid response and deploymentin the event of a major incident, emergency orterrorist attack is a scenario for which most8 | FOOTBALL & SPORTS ARENA | November/December 2009