Martyn's Law: the statutory position.

01 — Who it applies to

Three conditions, all of which must hold.

Under section 2, premises qualify where they are wholly or mainly used for one or more of the uses specified in Schedule 1, they are not excluded by Schedule 2, and it is reasonable to expect that — in the Act’s own words — “from time to time 200 or more individuals may be present on the premises at the same time”.

The phrasing is deliberate. The test is not the average occasion, and not the fire-safety capacity figure: it is whether a busy occasion of that size is reasonably foreseeable. Where numbers move with the calendar, the defensible figure comes from the busiest realistic occasion.

Four uses are capped at standard duty

Schedule 1 provides that certain premises are standard duty “regardless of how they would otherwise be treated”, so the 800 threshold cannot apply to them at any capacity:

• Places of worship — Schedule 1, paragraph 9
• Early years and childcare provision — paragraph 13
• Primary and secondary education — paragraph 14
• Further education — paragraph 15

Higher education is not capped. Paragraph 16 fixes only who the Responsible Person is — the governing body — so a university venue reaches the enhanced tier on numbers like any other. An assertion that a large place of worship or a secondary school is enhanced duty on headcount cannot be reconciled with Schedule 1.

And some premises are excluded outright

Schedule 2 removes premises from scope altogether. The provision most often overlooked is paragraph 3: open-air parks, gardens, recreation grounds and non-designated sports grounds are excluded where nothing checks payment, tickets, passes or membership on entry. Controls for a particular event or facility are disregarded where they do not limit access generally — so a park that fences off one ticketed festival a year remains an excluded park for the rest of it. The festival is assessed separately, as an event.

Capacity is a starting point, not a determination. How the figure is calculated, and whether premises qualify at all, turns on the specifics of the site and on Home Office statutory guidance. That assessment rests with the Responsible Person.

02 — Events

Events are a separate limb.

Section 3 treats qualifying events on their own terms: the premises are not already enhanced duty premises, the public have access to attend, 800 or more are expected to be present at the same time at some point, and access is controlled — by payment, ticket, pass, or membership of a club or association.

The consequence is that an event can qualify where the premises does not. A field, a car park or a civic square can sit outside the regime all year and still host something squarely within it for a weekend.

04 — What it asks for

Procedures first, then measures.

The standard tier concerns what people do when something happens — four families of procedure:

• Evacuation — moving people out, and knowing where to.
• Invacuation — bringing people in, or holding them, where outside is the greater risk.
• Lockdown — securing doors, barriers and routes to delay an attacker.
• Communication — alerting staff and the public quickly and unambiguously.

None of that requires construction work. It requires decisions, recorded, and staff who have been told what they are. The enhanced tier adds measures — steps reducing how vulnerable the premises is in the first place — with a documented assessment and a named accountable individual. That is where monitoring, physical security and security culture come into scope.