Missing in action

Last week there was an intriguing piece on the news about new government advice to employers on the need to design every building to take account of terrorist risk -- with some advice that it made sense to design in at the start as a cheaper alternative to retrofitting. Since that sounded rather like the line we take on the need to build in sustainability features and make buildings resilient to climate change I thought it might be worth a look -- not least to see how generalised the advice was. After all, the risk of higher summer temperatures or more extreme weather events -- or indeed higher prices for carbon - are rather more generalised than the risk of terrorist attack - just ask the Save our Selsey campaign who are not quaking at the thought of jihad in West Sussex. So while the advice might make sense for some high profile locations in densely packed cities, I was interested to see just how big a cost the government was thinking made economic sense.

But the report seems to be missing in action. Despite there being a nice video of the report to replay on the BBC website, I could turn up nothing on the Home Office website. And a google search yielded no results at all. so my excellent scheme to contrast vs our sustainability advice frustrated at the first attempt.

And not for the first time. Back in the autumn the PM announced a new terrorism strategy which sounded interesting - not least for the proposal to require baggage checks at mainline train stations (which would have done nothing to foil the Madrid bombings where the bombers took the trains into Atocha mainline station). The proposal to ban cycles from any proximity to any potential target including train stations seemed to fly in the face of the need to move to lower carbon travel. So I thought I might look at the way in which the carbon assessment had been done in the regulatory impact assessment. But again, whatever document underpinned the statement was missing in action on the Home Office website - and certainly is not there today.

This may all seem a bit obsessive and sad. And it may all just be that the Home Office hasn't got its website together. But one of the other lessons from the excellent PB (see previous post) is the power of "terror" in politics and how "availability" affects the assessment of risk - why people are much more worried about some risks than others. It would just be reassuring to know that we are being equally rational about climate change as other more visible threats.

And at least Yasmin Diamond is back at work and now can sort out the HO website....