West Oxfordshire District Council

Page navigation

Home << Business << Licensing and Regulation << Event Management << Thames Valley Police and Event Policing

Site directory

Publications listings
List our publications

Thames Valley Police and Event Policing

There has been a national change in policy which changes the whole ethos and approach to events. Surprisingly this policy has been in place since 2003; clearly there are differing levels of adoption, even within Thames Valley Police.

In essence:

There is a perception that the Police are the lead agency for approving all public events, including those which take place on the public highway. In reality, the police have no authority to either approve or prevent events on the highway (or elsewhere) and Police powers to regulate traffic for such planned events are extremely limited. Legal opinion is that the responsibility for public safety at all such events rests with the organisers of the event and the owners of the land upon which it takes place. The Police have no general duty to preserve public safety at any public event except where there are imminent or likely threats to life.

This means officers will not be used to police events.

However, there is still a need to know about your event to carry out an assessment of whether the Police need to discharge their core responsibilities, namely:

Prevention and detection of crime
Preventing or stopping breaches of the peace
Traffic regulation within legal powers provided by statute such as a road closure order. N.B. Police Officers will not be used as part of traffic management introduced in consequence of such an order unless this is absolutely unavoidable.

Organisers need to plan for a safe event which does not rely on a Police presence.

Event organisers should engage with the West Oxfordshire Safety Advisory Group (SAG) at an early stage of the planning process for any event. They will be able to provide advice, guidance and best practice to assist the organiser. The SAG may also be able to assist with signage and cones etc. (signage and coning must be placed by an accredited person).

There is a caveat; Local Police Officers may see the event as an ideal opportunity to engage with the local community as part of their commitment to neighbourhood policing, they will deal with policing issues presented to them at the time, but they are not there as part of the event policing. For example, the Christmas lights switch on.

For more information call 01993 861636 or email community.services@westoxon.gov.uk