COBR

Cabinet Office Briefing Room (COBR)

Released in 2010 under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this is the only publicly available photo of the classified COBR facility.
Location	Cabinet Office, 70 Whitehall, London, England
Country	United Kingdom
Purpose	Crisis management centre

The Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms (COBR) are a group of meeting rooms in the Cabinet Office at 70 Whitehall, often used for different committees which co-ordinate the actions of bodies within the Government of the United Kingdom in response to instances of national or regional crisis, or during events abroad with major implications for the UK. The composition of a COBR meeting depends on the nature of the incident but it is usually chaired by the Prime Minister or another senior minister, with other key ministers as appropriate, city mayors and representatives of relevant external organisations such as the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Local Government Association.

COBR meetings are generally held in one of the Cabinet Office buildings in Whitehall, London. Each is held in a secure room fitted with video and audio links to display intelligence information.

In 2009, former senior police officer Andy Hayman, who sat on the committee after the 7 July 2005 London bombings and at other intervals from 2005 to 2007, was highly critical of its workings in his book The Terrorist Hunters.

A single photo of COBR was released in 2010 in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

The first COBR meeting took place in the 1970s to oversee the government's response to the 1972 miners' strike. Other events that have led to meetings being convened include the 1980 Iranian Embassy siege, fuel protests, the 2001 foot and mouth outbreak, the 11 September 2001 attacks, the 7 July 2005 London bombings, the refugee crisis in Calais, the 2015 Paris attacks, and the 2017 Manchester Arena explosion,.