The Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025 is the biggest new duty our trade has had to explain in years. It is also the one we are most likely to oversell. Simon Legrand of Fyrfly Systems on why honesty is the better commercial position
There is a version of Martyn’s Law doing the rounds in our industry that goes something like this: A hard deadline of April 2027; every venue needs cameras, access control and a monitored alarm; buy now, before the rush… It is a tidy sales story. It is also wrong on all three counts, and the installers repeating it are storing up a reputational problem for the whole trade.
Take the deadline first, because it is the load-bearing myth.
The Act received Royal Assent on 3 April 2025. Its substantive requirements are not yet in force, and no commencement date has been fixed. What the Government committed to at Royal Assent was an implementation period of at least 24 months before the duty takes effect. That minimum runs out in April 2027, which is why the date is quoted everywhere as a deadline. It is not a deadline. It is the earliest point the window can open. The formal trigger will be a commencement regulation laid before Parliament, and at the time of writing it has not appeared. We track the verified position weekly on our Martyn’s Law tracker, precisely because the April 2027 date is one our clients keep hearing and one that is not real.
Selling a system against a deadline that does not exist is a short game. When the client’s compliance officer reads the actual guidance, or the trust’s solicitor does, the installer who invented the urgency is the one who looks either uninformed or opportunistic. Neither is a good look and in a referral-driven sector, neither is survivable.
Now the harder truth, the one that actually matters commercially. Most premises in scope will need no physical security installed at all.
The Act has two tiers. Standard Tier covers premises where 200 to 799 people, including staff, may reasonably be expected at the same time. Enhanced Tier covers 800 or more. Almost every secondary school and many primaries fall in scope, along with a large share of councils, and every one of them sits in Standard Tier, because education settings are placed there whatever their capacity. Here is the part the hardware pitch skips. Standard Tier requires no security installations. It requires the responsible person to notify the regulator and to have public protection procedures in place. Evacuation, invacuation, lockdown, communication. Procedures, not products. The tiers and their obligations are set out in full on our Martyn’s Law guide.
So if you sell boxes, Martyn’s Law is not the gold rush the seminars promised. If you sell capability, it is a genuine and durable opportunity, but only if you understand where the value actually sits.
The value sits in one clause. Standard Tier procedures must reflect the premises’ actual technical capability, not aspirational processes the building cannot execute. A lockdown procedure that assumes staff can be alerted simultaneously is worthless if there is no way to alert them. An invacuation plan that assumes doors can be secured quickly is worthless if they cannot. This is where a competent installer earns their place. Not by invoking a duty, but by making the client’s documented procedures physically executable. A way to reach every member of staff at once. Controlled, monitored entry, so the client knows who is in the building. Doors that lock on command and CCTV covering the points the procedure actually relies on.
That is an honest specification conversation, and it is a better one. You are not selling compliance, because you cannot. The Security Industry Authority will regulate the regime, and no installer can certify a client compliant. You are selling the physical means to make a plan work, which is exactly what our trade is for.
So my argument to fellow installers is simple. Drop the deadline and drop the blanket “everyone needs a system” line. Learn the tiers well enough to tell a client honestly when they need very little from you, because that is the conversation that earns the survey, the maintenance contract, and the next three schools in the trust. The firms that treat Martyn’s Law as a fear-led sales window will get a quarter or two of easy orders and a reputation to match. The firms that explain it straight will still be trusted when the real commencement date finally lands.
