Introduction to emergencies and major incidents

Accidents, whether human or natural, occur from time to time. They will often be managed by the emergency services alone but on occasions the emergency may be either too large in scale or too complex for the emergency services to deal with unassisted. During these circumstances, a major incident may be declared and assistance sought from a wide range of professional partners. Shropshire County Council is one of the agencies that would respond to these types of emergency to support the emergency services and the community in dealing with the effects of the major incident.

The aim of the Emergency Planning Unit is to identify the threats and risks in Shropshire and plan for the response and recovery should an incident occur. The ultimate objective is to minimise the impact of disaster on the day-to-day lives of the community and the environment and to assist the return to normality. Emergency planners, working with a wide range of other agencies, prepare contingency plans and organise major incident training and major incident exercises to prepare for all types of emergencies, just in case. Whatever the incident, the role of Shropshire County Council is always to provide support and care to the community and get things back to a sense of normality as soon as possible.

The types of activities that we undertake to prepare the County Council to respond to emergencies are:

• develop the County Council's response strategy to a major incident
• prepare and plan for natural or man-made disasters
• develop plans for the evacuation of an area or community
• develop plans for the management of widespread animal diseases
• develop plans for chemical, biological or radiological incidents (including industrial COMAH sites)
• prepare and plan for flooding incidents
• prepare and plan for severe weather
• provide advice for public events on how to prepare contingency plans to deal with emergencies

All the above activities are risk assessed, thought through and planned with other professional agencies. Key personnel are trained. The plan is then exercised, reviewed and repeated again.

In order to ensure that Shropshire County Council can provide this service at any time, the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 requires the County Council (and other agencies that may have to respond to emergencies) to have a Business Continuity Plan. These plans allow these organisations to operate even if the emergency directly affects their activities. This means the services needed by the public can still be delivered.

The areas on these web pages will provide you with the background and information you will need to prepare you, your family, your business or voluntary organisation to prepare for and reduce the chances of an emergency.

For further information, please contact the Emergency Planning Unit. Contact details can be found following this link on this page. The downloads on this page will also provide you with some of the information found on this website in an easy to follow guide.

Please see the link on this page to West Mercia prepared website, which includes information on what to do in an emergency.