Emergencies

 

Contingency and Disaster Management is concerned with facilitating the planning and preparation of the local authority response to a major incident, with the focus on mitigating the impact of any emergency which may arise within the locality.

 

In particular it co-ordinates the response and activities of the council by those departments that may have a role to play in responding to the particular emergency.

 

The types of emergency that are considered to require a response from the council are those which need the implementation of special arrangements by one or more of the emergency services, the National Health Service, or where there are large numbers of people involved.

 

Such incidents may include major transport accidents, severe weather conditions, industrial accidents, fire, epidemics or terrorist activities.

 

The concept utilised is that termed Integrated Emergency Management. This involves working with the emergency services, utilities and voluntary agencies to ensure that together with the council's own departments all concerned will work together with the common goal of returning the community to normality as soon as is reasonably possible.