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Electricity prices in the UK were already increasing because of a combination of the rising cost of fossil fuels, outages of nuclear power plants and an unseasonable shortage of wind.  However, the sudden shock of a fire at a National Grid site in Ashford, Kent shutting down a 2GW interconnection with France sent prices rocketing […]

The media last week was full of dramatic images of flooding in London: the disruption to Tube stations and two major hospitals causing particular concern.  But, exactly two years ago, we were facing an even more serious flooding incident here in the High Peak. Sustained rainfall through late July 2019 had filled Toddbrook Reservoir to […]

Databarracks have just published their 2021 Data Health Check.  You may think “So what?” – we are constantly bombarded with surveys on different aspects of information security management.  I would argue that the Data Health Check is interesting for two reasons: It is explicitly UK focused; and The survey has been carried out every year […]

On 6th July 1988, 167 men died following a devastating fire on the Piper Alpha platform, operated by Occidental Oil in the North Sea.  Only 61 people survived, some of whom leapt over 100 feet from the burning platform into the sea.  As ever, our thoughts are with those survivors and the bereaved families. The […]

There has been extensive coverage over the weekend of the massive ransomware attack, that began at the US-based IT firm Kaseya.  The attackers managed to infect a software update for Kaseya’s VSA product that went out to customers on Friday with REvil ransomware.  This not only affected these firms, but also their customers.  One of […]

The Manchester Arena Inquiry Volume 1: Security for the Arena was published last week.  It is now over four years since the attack, and the proceedings of the Inquiry have been widely reported as they happened; but this volume brings together all the evidence about security prior to 22nd May 2017 and, crucially, provides a […]

In this final blog post looking back at the 1996 Manchester bombing, we discuss the recovery of the hundreds of small businesses caught up in the devastation.  Those affected by the attack included: 100 shops in the Royal Exchange; 150 shops in the Corn Exchange; 40 small offices; 15 pubs/cafes; and 1 clairvoyant. The impact […]

The Arndale Centre was the largest covered shopping centre in Europe when it opened in 1979.  By 1996 it had 130 000 square metres of retail space with over 230 individual stores laid out on two levels.  The centre was owned and managed at the time of the bombing by P&O Properties.  Its tenants included […]

As we recalled yesterday, the Manchester City Centre bombing was the largest explosion on the UK mainland since WWII.  Reports of possible secondary devices continued for some time after the explosion and Police initially established a cordon at the Inner Ring Road; by Saturday evening the cordoned area had been reduced to an area of […]

On the morning of 15th June 1996 many people in Manchester were enjoying the fine weather and England’s progress in Euro 96.  The City Centre was busy with people last-minute shopping for Father’s Day, but that was about to change… At 11.17am a bomb containing 1500kg of home-made explosive detonated in a van parked outside […]