The UK Government’s new counter-terrorism strategy has been welcomed by the British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association (BVRLA).
The organisation said it was pleased that Home Secretary Sajid Javid had announced more counter-terrorism resources and increased intelligence-sharing to help with early detection of terrorists.
The BVRLA has been working closely and more frequently with law enforcement organisations and the government to identify and agree tactics to reduce the risk of terrorism following a spate of attacks in 2017 where rental vehicles were used as ramming weapons.
BVRLA chief executive Gerry Keaney said: “Our sector has always taken security very seriously and the BVRLA has long-established processes in place to share information on the latest security threats and best practice, and we continue to work with the government to explore ways of how we can share data more effectively.
“We welcome the Home Secretary’s announcement today of more intelligence-sharing and increased counter terrorism resources.
“Our sector remains committed to working closely with government agencies to report suspicious activity and as the leading trade body in this area we have increased the amount of training available.
“But our members and their employees cannot be expected to do the job of law enforcement, which is a government function requiring specialist skills.”
Keaney added that the BVRLA is working hard to increase awareness of the threat of terrorism, and has recently developed a series of training resources available free-of-charge to both members and non-members.
He said the training tools are designed to be delivered in-house by non-experts to those operating in the daily rental sector.
The BVRLA also recently published a report – ‘Vehicles as weapons: a threat and policy assessment for the UK vehicle rental sector’ – produced in partnership with the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation, which assesses the impact of terrorism on the rental sector.
