During an emergency, the role of Calderdale Council's Emergency Planning Team is to:
- coordinate the Councils response;
- assist the emergency services;
- and support the needs of the people and communities affected by the incident.
The Emergency Planning Team works with partner organisations to carry out assessments on potential risks. This is in order to develop, prepare and maintain emergency plans, guidance documents and other related information. This is done to benefit Calderdale's communities and beyond.
During an emergency, the Council and other organisations will strive to support all members of the community. However, there are actions you can take to help keep yourself and your family safe until help arrives.
More information can be found from the Cabinet Office at: The Civil Contingencies Act and Emergency preparedness.
See also: Business Advice.
Contact Emergency Planning
For more information, please contact the Emergency Planning Team:
- Emergency Planning
- Telephone: 01422 288001
- Email: emergencyplanning@calderdale.gov.uk
The Team can also give general advice and support towards achieving Business Continuity.
Emergencies
The Emergency Planning Team work to the Civil contingencies act.
This was introduced after emergencies including fuel shortages, flooding and the Foot and Mouth crisis. All of this highlighted the need for a more coordinated response between organisations.
What is an emergency?
The Civil Contingencies Act 2004 defines emergency as:
- An event or situation which threatens serious damage to human welfare in a place in the UK;
- the environment of a place in the UK;
- or war/terrorism that threatens serious damage to the security of the UK.
Can an emergency affect you?
The chances of your family being caught up in an emergency are low. Although, every family needs to plan for what might happen in the event of an emergency. This could be something like flood or a fire. A few minutes thinking about it now could make a big difference if an emergency happens.
For more about this, see: Preparing for emergencies.
Emergency Control Centre
When a large emergency occurs, we may set up an Emergency Control Centre. This will be a communications base, from which we coordinate response to the emergency.
It will be in constant contact with other responding organisations, such as the Police and Fire & Rescue Service. This is to make sure that there is an effective response.
During an incident, we send an Officer to liaise with emergency services. They feed information back to the Emergency Control Centre, as things progress.
Partnership working
Our Emergency Planning Team is a member of the West Yorkshire Resilience Forum. This was formed in 2004, after the publication of the Civil Contingencies Act (2004).
The Forum gives a basis to make sure organisations in West Yorkshire that respond to emergencies work very closely together. Not just during emergencies, but also in the planning stage.
For more about this, read:
Emergency Planning
The work undertaken by the Emergency Planning Team can be separated into three areas – Planning, Responding and Recovery.
Planning
Calderdale Council Emergency Planning Team works in close partnership with other Council services and external organisations through the West Yorkshire Resilience Forum, including the Police, Fire Service, Ambulance Service and Environment Agency, to prepare and plan for emergencies. Once Plans have been written, key personnel are trained and an exercise is developed to test that Plans work and staff are aware of their roles and responsibilities. Plans are reviewed and amended on an annual basis to ensure they remain relevant and would be effective should they be activated.
The Council's Emergency Incident Plan is a generic plan used in all emergencies. It sets out who does what within the Council and a framework for responding. In addition, the Council have other plans which focus on either an identified risk, for example flooding, or enabling the response to an emergency, for example a Rest Centre Plan.
The Emergency Planning Team also develops Business Continuity Plans (see: Business Advice) for the Council, this ensures if an incident occurs the Council is able to continue to maintain its critical functions and restore normal business as soon as possible. In addition, the Team provides the public with information about preparing for emergencies and what to do in the event of an emergency to increase community resilience.
Responding
The Emergency Planning Team has an Adviser on duty 24 hours a day throughout the year. This ensures the Council can be contacted at any time by partner organisations in the event of an emergency and an appropriate response can be initiated. In addition, the team monitor flood warnings and weather forecasts closely when there is a potential risk of flooding or severe weather in Calderdale.
During the response to an emergency, the Emergency Planning Team coordinate the Council's response and may do so from an Emergency Control Centre. The Emergency Planning Team also aim to support the emergency services response to ensure the needs of the communities affected by the emergency are addressed. For more information about how communities will be supported during an emergency, see: Rest centres.
Recovery
The Council is responsible for the recovery from an emergency. The recovery process begins whilst the emergency is occurring, not once the emergency has finished.
Following a smaller emergency, recovery may only take several hours and involve residents being allowed back into their homes following an evacuation. However, recovery from a larger incident may take a number of weeks, months or years and may be about returning to a new 'normality'.
Following an emergency, a debrief will take place whereby all those involved in the incident discuss what went well and what could be improved upon. After the debrief the plans which were activated in response to the emergency will be reviewed and amended where necessary. Further training and exercising of the plans will then take place to ensure changes are effective.