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Civil emergencies

Emergency Planning

The role of Bedford Borough Council in respect of Emergency Planning is both important and varied.  

As a Local Authority, Bedford Borough Council has a responsibility to plan and prepare for emergencies. The Civil Contingencies Act 2004 (a Parliamentary Act that concentrates on local arrangements for civil protection and seeks to instil continuity in all levels of local government / organisations potentially involved in dealing with an emergency situation) places a statutory duty on all Local Authorities as ‘Category 1 Responders’ to plan and prepare for emergencies through such aspects as:

• regular training of staff
• the production of emergency plans
• regular exercising of emergency plans and of response processes
• helping local businesses to be aware of the purposes / benefits of having Business Continuity arrangements in place following an incident 
• joint working with other local authorities and other Category 1 Responders. 

As such Bedford Borough Council has an established Emergency Management Team that have been trained in the response process, assigned specific roles, and are aware of the various emergency plans in operation. The Borough works closely with neighbouring local authorities and with the Bedfordshire and Luton Local Resilience forum, to ensure that the Bedfordshire region as a whole has a common understanding of the response processes that will take place in the event of a major incident/emergency occurring.

(For a short summary guide to the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 please click here.)    

Emergency Response  

Emergency procedures are in place to ensure that should a major incident/emergency occur within Bedford Borough, an Emergency Management Team can be quickly established and, depending on the nature of the incident, work with or without the emergency services/other local authorities to address the problems being identified. To ensure that the Borough Council can quickly establish such an Emergency Management Team, a senior Officer will always be on duty (24/7) to start the established Borough response process upon declaration of an incident occurring / situation developing.   

Just as Officers have been assigned directly to the response process, the Borough Council also has an established group of Officers that will, from the outset, form the Residual Management Team in the event of an incident occurring. The Team will ensure that, as far as is reasonably possible, normal Council service delivery is maintained even when the incident involves Council property or staff.    

Recovery / Restoration Process  

As the incident moves from the immediate response to the recovery phase the Council will usually take the lead in restoring normality to the environment and affected communities. Specific Council departments such as Environmental Health and Housing will be crucial in addressing problems in affected communities such as environmental contamination / pollution or indeed demands for short/long term alternative accommodation.    

Information  

• If you witness an ‘Emergency’ you should contact the Police on 999.
• During the course of a major incident/emergency you should listen/watch for information relayed by the local media, whereby relevant incident-related phone numbers should be circulated.
• Should the Town Hall be rendered unusable by the incident, again information will be circulated by the Council via the local media to inform you of this and of the level of Council service provision in operation.  

          The Local Radio stations that will provide key information as it is available are:  
          -          BBC Three Counties 95.5fm, 103.8fm, 104.5fm, 630mw and 1161mw
          -          Chiltern FM 97.6fm and 96.9fm    

For general information on preparing for emergencies the Government has produced and distributed a public information booklet on counter-terrorism and civil contingencies entitled ‘Preparing For Emergencies – what you need to know’.

Preparing for Emergencies Leaflet. ( 1309 KB ) - DOWNLOAD

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