Emergency Planning in the District

Floods!

The year 2000 was notable for national emergencies in Britain.  We experienced floods, the foot and mouth outbreak and also coordinated fuel protests causing petrol shortages and blocked motorways. As a result of this John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister at the time, decided that Local Authorities should be given some responsibility, alongside other agencies, for dealing with emergencies that happen in their areas.  District Councils, along with County Councils, became ‘Category 1 Responders’, with duties to assess risks of incidents in advance, inform the public about civic protection and provide advice and assistance during and after the incident.

As a result Babergh and Mid Suffolk share their own Emergency Planning officer, and they also co-operate with other Districts and Suffolk County Council to deal with extreme events across Suffolk as a whole.

All councillors are offered training about their role in civil protection and yesterday I went to such a session at the Suffolk One in Ipswich.  It was an interesting four hours and I learnt a good deal that I did not know before.

One interesting fact is that a very high proportion of households in Suffolk, over 80%, have chosen to receive flood alerts, a statistic that compares with an average of 45% in the country as a whole.  Given the low lying and coastal nature of the county I suppose that this is not altogether surprising. 

Another rather disturbing nugget is the fact that Radio Suffolk will generally alert the community to an emergency.  However, at present it seems that the station's ‘every kick of every match’ policy means that this service is not available during football matches.  So let’s hope nothing untoward occurs on a Saturday afternoon!!!

Business continuity, aka keeping our own show on the road, is another area for which we need to plan.  When Melton Mowbray Borough Council’s offices caught fire, and subsequently almost burnt to the ground, early one May morning in 2008 good contingency planning meant that they had a call centre up and running the same day and all staff back to work within a week.  I hope that Babergh would be able to do the same in similar circumstances.

Melton Mowbray council offices on fire, May 2008

If anyone would like information about planning for emergencies in their community they should call the Babergh and Mid Suffolk Joint Emergency Planning Unit on 01449 724848, or look at the website:http://www.getpreparednow.co.uk/