Resilience means being prepared, staying connected and helping one another when things go wrong.

The basic idea

Emergencies can happen with little warning. Flooding, extreme weather, power cuts, disruption to water supplies or major transport incidents can all affect our neighbourhoods.

The Urban Exe Resilience Network is a new community initiative for St Thomas, Exwick, Alphington and St Davids. It aims to bring together local organisations, volunteers and residents so that our communities are better prepared, better connected and better able to support one another when something goes wrong.

A network of local Emergency Hubs

At the heart of the project will be a network of Emergency Hubs based in existing community venues.

These could be run by churches, community organisations, social clubs, charities, social enterprises or local businesses. In an emergency, a Hub could become a familiar local place where people can find reliable information, make contact with others and help organise an appropriate community response.

The Hubs would remain locally run. The Urban Exe Resilience Network would support them with equipment, guidance, training, communications and coordination.

Local people, useful skills

The Network will also bring together individual volunteers with a wide variety of skills.

Some may be interested in communications or helping to gather and verify information. Others might provide practical assistance, support volunteers, help with training, first aid or welfare, or simply know their neighbourhood particularly well.

Training and exercises will take place throughout the year, helping us build relationships and practise useful skills before an emergency happens. Proposed activities include radio communications, first aid, risk assessment, safeguarding, map reading and practical emergency exercises.

Working alongside the emergency services

The Urban Exe Resilience Network will not be an emergency service, and volunteers will not be expected to put themselves at risk.

Police, fire, ambulance services, local authorities and other statutory organisations will continue to lead the official response to major incidents. Our aim is to strengthen the community around that response - sharing reliable information, helping neighbours, supporting local organisations and providing safe, practical assistance where it is useful.

Building resilience before we need it

Community resilience isn't only about having an emergency plan sitting on a shelf.

We want to build a network of people and organisations who know one another, have useful skills, have practised working together and know how to communicate when normal arrangements are disrupted.

The intention is to hold regular training and an annual emergency exercise involving local groups and, where possible, the organisations that would respond to a real emergency.

Get involved

We're currently developing the Urban Exe Resilience Network and would like to hear from local organisations and individuals interested in being part of it.

You don't need specialist emergency-response experience. We are looking for a broad mix of people, organisations, venues, local knowledge and practical skills.

You might:

• volunteer as an individual

• offer particular skills or experience

• represent a local community organisation

• be interested in your venue becoming an Emergency Hub

• help with communications, training, welfare or practical support

• simply want to find out more

Interested? Get in touch: hello@love-st-thomas.org
or attend our meeting on Friday 16th October (see top of page).

Documents

Draft Stakeholder Briefing 23 April 2026

St Thomas Community Emergency Plan 2021