General Information
With the emergence of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 all Local Authorities must make provision for dealing with an emergency, which is defined as in the above act as…
a) an event or situation which threatens serious damage to human welfare in a place in the United Kingdom,
b) an event or situation which threatens serious damage to the environment of a place in the United Kingdom, or
c) war, or terrorism, which threatens serious damage to the security of the United Kingdom.
Castle Morpeth Borough Council has in place procedures for dealing with incidents that would otherwise threaten the delivery of critical services, such as collection of refuse, the protection of Public Health, safety or the environment, bereavement services or financial services. Whilst this means that if faced with a major incident other services may be suspended or delayed, the arrangements put in place seek to minimise effects on residents, businesses and visitors.
The Council’s Business Continuity Plan is based on identifying critical services and identifying alternative means of delivering them if their normal base of operation etc could not be used.
Castle Morpeth Borough Council in collaboration with Environmental Health colleagues throughout Northumberland has contributed a list of hazards for risk assessment by the Local Resilience Forum which consists of Category 1 and Category 2 responders in the Northumbria Police area.
The resulting Community Risk Register can be found using the link above, this a living document and will be continually updated.
Emergency Planning
Emergency planning is ensuring that appropriate support is provided to the Borough's residents' businesses and visitors in adverse situations and trying to assist in resilience—recovery. Situations that have arisen are...
Ponteland Floods
Disrupted Water Supply
Foot and Mouth Outbreak
Fuel Crisis
Tornado Aircraft Crash
Mine Gas Incidents
Train Crashes
Because of this Castle Morpeth Borough Council has an Emergency Plan. The public sections of the plan are available above in Pdf format. The plan lays out how we work with other agencies both Category 1 (eg Fire, Police, Environment Agency etc.) and Category 2 (eg Northumbrian Water, other utilities companies and voluntary sector bodies) in planning for emergencies through the Local Resilience Forum (LRF).
We have also developed a Flood Action Plan which may be viewed using the link above.
Preparing for Emergencies
The Cabinet Office has a dedicated website that contains a lot of information with regards to what you can do to prepare for emergencies and what to do in the event of an emergency and the types of emergencies we may face. You can view this website at www.preparingforemergencies.gov.uk and you may also download a copy of the booklet Preparing for Emergencies –What you Need to Know by using the link above. This booklet is available in multiple languages and formats which can be obtained from the above website.
Another useful website is www.ukresilience.info which is the website of the Civil Contingencies Secretariat in the Cabinet Office. It provides links to government and non-government sources on a wide variety of emergencies and crises that can affect the UK, plus emergency planning guidance and government information.