Protecting the 2022 Commonwealth Games with hostile vehicle mitigation

In July 2022, 72 nations came together to compete for medals at the Commonwealth Games held in Birmingham. IFSEC Global reports on how months prior, the National Vehicle Threat Mitigation Unit (NVTMU) had started its preparation to help protect everyone attending the events.

For NVTMU, this was said to involve providing advice to local and regional authorities, transport partners, police and the organising committee of the Commonwealth Games on countering a vehicle being used as a weapon. This was supported by the team delivering vehicle mitigation barriers, from the National Barrier Asset (NBA) to 18 sites which included athletes’ villages, transport malls and sporting venues.

Throughout the event planning stages, the NVTMU is said to have conducted numerous site visits, providing advice and support to Counter Terrorism Security Coordinators (CT SecCos) from West Midlands Police along with wider multi-agency partners across the resilience forums.

The NVTMU consists of four Police Officers who are subject matter experts in the deployment of temporary hostile vehicle mitigation.

The deployment of the NBA, to support partners in delivering the Commonwealth Games, was reportedly the largest ever of the asset in the 19 years that it has been in action across various sites around the UK. This entire process spanned a total of 76 days.

In total, 56 gates, 387 barges, 160 Wailing Units from the NBA; plus 2000 Quick Moveable Blocks, two kilometres of TVRS, 475 modular HVM units, five kilometres of high security fencing and 12 kilometres of security fencing were deployed.

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