New police plan to mobilise communities and disrupt terrorists

Project Servator sees officers specially trained to deter, disrupt and detect crime using tactics developed and tested by security experts in partnership with the City of London Police. The scheme is now set to be rolled out across the country.

Project Servator deploys both highly visible and covert police officers alongside other resources such as dogs, horses, firearms, ANPR and CCTV in busy areas such as shopping centres and transport hubs. These deployments are unpredictable and intelligence-led and include officers trained to spot and resolve suspicious activity.

However, key to the success of Project Servator is the support of workers and visitors in and around crowded places, acting as extra eyes and ears to help make it even harder for criminals to succeed.

Developed and tested over a five-year period by the Centre for Protection of National Infrastructure (CPNI), Project Servator has been successfully used and is already ‘business as usual’ for a number of forces such as City of London Police, British Transport Police (BTP), Essex Police, Ministry of Defence Police and the Civil Nuclear Constabulary. It was also used extensively by Police Scotland during the Glasgow Commonwealth Games in 2014.

To date BTP has carried out more than 400 deployments since adopting Project Servator in December 2015. Officers have engaged with thousands of rail users, staff and station workers at railway stations across the country, including London, Glasgow, Cardiff, York, Leeds and Brighton. They were deployed at Edinburgh Waverley station for three weeks throughout the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August to help deter theft offences. In that time six million passengers passed through the station and not one theft was reported.

Building on these successes, there will now be a national roll out of Project Servator. The Metropolitan Police will launch the scheme in some of its boroughs today (Monday, 28 Nov) and more forces spread across England and Wales will begin the training needed to adopt the project over the coming months.

Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley, announcing Project Servator in the Metropolitan Police area, said: “The public might see us out in force with lots of police resources like we have at the deployment in London today, and at other times we will be working in a more covert way.

“The aim is to combine effective police deployments with vigilant communities, and to be unpredictable and undermine the confidence of criminals and terrorists to carry out hostile reconnaissance.

“The threat level remains Severe, meaning an attack is highly likely. We need everyone to be alert, not alarmed, and report concerns to us.

“A key element of Servator is that our overt officers talk to the people who use crowded places and encourage them to feel confident in reporting their concerns to us. Their contribution has played a large part in making Servator a success in forces that have already adopted the tactics. Working together with communities we can all play our part in keeping people safe from terrorism.”

Detective Chief Superintendent Scott Wilson, the national police coordinator for Protect and Prepare, said: “Everyone has a role to play in making sure we all stay safe from the terrorist threat.

"Project Servator involves proven tactics and training for police officers that will help to deter hostile reconnaissance.  It also increases the opportunity for interaction between police officers and the public, provides further reassurance and helps deter and detect other potential crimes.

"Over the next 12 months, as we roll out Project Servator, people will see more high-profile deployments in and around communities and at key locations. These deployments will vary from one day to the next.

"The visible police presence, coupled with vigilant communities reporting suspicious activity, makes the difference between criminals being able to plan attacks or being stopped in their tracks."