Emergency planning
Minor emergencies occur on a regular basis, and are often dealt with by a responding organisation unaided or with limited assistance.
This is the case in most emergencies handled by the emergency services. Occasionally the nature or severity of the incident will require an integrated approach utilising other agencies, which include district councils.
Under the Civil Contingency Act 2004, all district councils are Category 1 Responders. They provide a range of services which may be called upon, at any time of the day or night by other agencies as part of the response to an emergency.
While we are not an emergency service, our response must be swift and co-ordinated with mobilisation of our resources, often at short notice.
In response to an emergency, both we and Hampshire County Council will principally be required to:
- support emergency services with resources (usually our normal services)
- look after the care and welfare of people (shelter and re-housing)
- warn and inform the public
- protect the environment.
Once the emergency response is over and moves to the recovery phase, we and Hampshire County Council will have a leading role in remediation.
This is outlined in our Emergency Response Plan, which you can download below.