An item about how we can work together to protect against and deal with flooding and other emergencies.
It is important that affected communities come and participate. We hope to have representatives from Wiltshire Police, Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service, the Environment Agency and Wiltshire Council officers from the highways and emergency planning teams.
Minutes:
A discussion was held amongst Councillors and attendees to review the recent flooding in the area. The aim of the discussion was to identify success stories and areas for improvement with regard to flood responses.
The Chairman introduced Miranda Gilmour to manage the discussion. Ms Gilmour then introduced the Emergency Planning Officer, Nicholas Bate.
Mr Bate detailed the role of public health with regard to flooding and also highlighted the success of the community in harnessing resources to support the emergency services. Nicholas then discussed the Government plan to enable local parishes to react to crisis situations in the period preceding the arrival of emergency services. It was suggested that town and parish councils should develop and implement local emergency plans. This would include identifying local skills and resources, whilst also determining vulnerable residents and those likely to be in need of support. Nicholas also addressed the cascading levels of telephone contact within the community, designed to alert the relevant individuals/authorities at a point of emergency.
The desktop emergency planning exercise to be held on 30 January had been established to manage these points, and to date, five local parishes and representatives from the town council had signed up to participate.
Dave Jacomb from Wiltshire Fire and Rescue then outlined the positive responses from the fire service, and stated that the department were well equipped to deal with flooding. Mr Jacomb stated that WF&RS attended 100 incidents relating to flooding during the period of 21-26th November. These included; property inspections, advice, monitoring, evacuations and flood water removal. Statistical information from this period has been shared with other agencies in order to improve planning and preventative strategies. Finally Mr Jacomb stated that WF&RS was inviting residents and local parishes to engage with the fire service to allow parties to work towards preventative measures and provide advice.
Sergeant Martin Alvis from Wiltshire Police provided and overview of the forces opinion on positive actions witnessed. Sgt. Alvis stated that Wiltshire Police had worked with partners to distribute flood warnings across the region and that this had worked well. In addition the force was able to provide local updates and safety advice via its Facebook page, which received over 9000 independent visitors. A question was asked around providing more stop signs for flooded roads, to which Sgt. Alvis responded by stating that there were simply not enough resources to provide and distribute signs across the region and that people should use common sense when using the roads during this period.
Danny Everett, the council’s principal Drainage Engineer provided an overview of the successful experiences during the recent flooding with regard to drainage. He explained that the drainage team operated with wide remit with limited resources. This included drainage of high speed roads, property flooding, low speed roads, residential land and agricultural land. Danny invited parish/town councils to provide maps and data on historical flooding to help develop future action plans and preventative strategies.
Bill Parks, Head of Local Highways and Street Scene, for Wiltshire Council explained that during the winter and extreme weather conditions the council provided a 24/7 duty engineer scheme to deal with problems on the highway network including flooding.
Martin Rae from Malmesbury and the Villages Community Area Partnership discussed the success of their flood information website - http://malmesburyfloodinfo.weebly.com - that had been set up for the local area which distributed flood information, local help and warnings. This service allowed residents to identify local help and resources available to them.
Miranda Gilmour thanked all the agencies for the updates and input and then opened the floor for attendees to provide success and failure stories as a learning exercise.
A copy of these findings is attached to the minutes.
Decision
The Area Board would develop an action sheet to address improvements from the learning exercise which would be circulated.
The Chairman then thanked partners and attendees for their input.