Manchester City Centre: Large Protests Advice to Businesses

Large protest events are expected to continue to take place in the city centre. The right to peacefully protest is protected under the European Convention on Human Rights.

CityCo and Manchester City Centre BID are dedicated to keeping the city open for all and work in partnership with Greater Manchester Police and Manchester City Council to keep businesses briefed and prepared for protests and major events.

We are here to assist. We share intelligence as early as we can to help you plan your business continuity.

Please ensure we have up-to-date and relevant email addresses to receive alerts. Bespoke and live alerts come from our operations@cityco.com email address. Please ensure you whitelist cityco.com to bypass any firewalls.

Business Readiness
Check your business is aware and prepared for protest events.

• Are staff aware of planned protest activity?
• Is it likely that your business will be a focus of a protest or attract particular attention?
• Take time to brief staff and review plans that are in place
• Test staff welfare plans. Do you need to adjust any plans / rotas / activity?
• Do you need to bring-in additional staff or other resources?
• Have you prepared contingencies on behalf of customers if you need to temporarily close public entrances i.e. ‘invacuations’. Do you need to designate alternative exit points?

During Protests
Check your business has incident management plans in place.

• Who will respond during the protest if a dynamic decision needs to be made? (e.g. if premises access is temporarily blocked or business is interrupted)
• Are you able to easily communicate decisions across the business during a protest? (e.g. have you checked communications systems are being monitored by all staff during the protests?)
• If an incident occurs, can your staff contact you quickly?
• Have you advised staff not to engage / how to de-escalate any potential conflict situations?

After Protests
Check your business has policies in place.

• Do you have a policy on the removal of any protest materials such as stickers, leaflets, graffiti etc.?
• In the event of an incident, can you retain any CCTV evidence easily?
• Can you help staff get home if transport has been severely impacted?
• What can you learn from the event and implement in future?