Groby Community Response Plan

Update 2020- The Community Response Plan has been adopted by the Parish Council

October 2019

Parish Emergency Committee supports adoption of a

Community Response Plan

The Civil Contingencies Act 2004 requires specific organisations within a policing area to work together to prepare for, respond to and recover from different emergencies, and in September Groby Parish Council's Emergency Committee was given a presentation by the Resilience Partnership that delivers emergency planning for Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland.

The Emergency Services have to focus their resources on helping the most vulnerable and those most badly affected when a wide scale major incident occurs. A community might be affected but not receive immediate assistance because others are in greater need and so communities are encouraged to be in a position to help themselves in those exceptional circumstances and to produce a Community Response Plan. A Community Response Plan helps identify the skills, knowledge and resources that are available locally to help those who have been affected.

Developing a Response Plan enables the community to come together to think about what it can do to assist the Emergency Services and to prepare for an emergency. This would involve undertaking a local risk assessment and identifying :

·core members of the Community Response Team

· local skills and resources

· key locations that can be used as places of safety

· triggers for activating the Community Response Plan

In addition it would be necessary to develop a simple set of instructions covering the first steps for plan activation, create an Emergency Kit, record emergency contact details, and agree how the plan will be kept up to date.

Grant for emergency equipment

When Groby Parish Council considered the recommendation of the Emergency Committee to participate in the scheme it is likely that they agreed that it is a sensible course of action. The fire at Druck demonstrates how residents rally around to help when needed and if a Plan is developed it will enable people to offer their skills in advance of an emergency, improving the quality of the response with hopefully better outcomes for those adversely affected. If you have particular skills that will be needed in the event of an emergency, or just want to offer general support, give the Parish Clerk a call on 0116 287 6985 or emailing parishclerk@groby.com. Knowing that there is community support will help the Council in it's decision making and planning.

Protect your home and family

The advice to plan is not just aimed at local authorities – householders are also encouraged to think about how they would protect their homes and families in an emergency. Advice is available and

covers a number of scenarios :

· when it is safer to stay in

· when emergency services might need to evacuate homes, schools and workplaces

· choosing a friend or relative who lives outside the immediate area who you all agree to contact if you are unable to phone each other and cannot get to an agreed meeting point

· making a note of details of family members or friends who have agreed to provide you with a place to stay following an emergency

· knowing how to isolate water, gas and electricity supplies if necessary

· creating a list of your legal and sentimental critical documents so that you can store them away from threats

· ensuring to take with you passports, driving licences, insurance documents, building society books, etc, if you have to evacuate

· making arrangements to enable you to carry on at home for two or three days without utilities or access to shops

· keeping a list of the contact details you might need in an emergency to ensure you can get in touch with the right people quickly

It's also recommended that you decide on an ICE contact (ICE = In Case of Emergency). This is the person (or people) who the Emergency Services should contact on your behalf. Think carefully about who you choose for an ICE contact because that person might need to give consent to medical treatment. Put ICE contacts in your mobile phone and / or on a card for your wallet or purse. And if anyone in your household has special needs which make them medically reliant on utilities such as electricity and water speak to your provider about getting onto their Priority Services Register.

But don't forget family members, friends or neighbours who are elderly, disabled or vulnerable and might need your help in an emergency, or might require specialist help from the Emergency Services. Giving advance thought to their specific needs will help ensure that you can request the appropriate support without delay.

There are probably few households that are this well prepared for the day things go wrong. But as the recent flooding, the Kegworth air disaster, Grenfell Tower and the Birstall gas explosion demonstrate, the unexpected does happen.

There's more information online – just Google 'grobylinx' and follow the links.