East Peckham's emergency plan

East Peckham Parish Councillor David Seal discusses the community resilience plans that they have in place to support the local response to flooding, severe weather incidents and other emergencies that have the potential to impact their residents.

 

As coordinator of East Peckham’s Emergency Planning Group David’s role involves looking at the risks and emergencies that the village could face and determining what localised activities can be planned to help mitigate any disruption to the every-day lives of residents.

 

Enhanced support

David said: “It is important to emphasise that our community resilience plans in no way replaces the work or statutory duties of the emergency services and local authorities. There could be occasions where your community becomes isolated, or a wide-spread incident affecting multiple areas where emergency services could be delayed or diverted to areas in greater need to save lives. Our plans are in place to ensure our community is better prepared and residents can be supported, should the worst happen.”

 

History of flooding

Situated in an area with two rivers, the Medway and the Bourne, as well as several streams, East Peckham is prone to regular flooding. Historically, the village was devastated by flooding in 1968, and in more recent times experienced a full evacuation of residents due to a significant risk of flooding from a nearby reservoir in 2000. Some properties in the village were impacted by the Christmas 2013 floods, although fortunately not as severely as some of the surrounding areas. In the event of prolonged heavy rain, local roads and lanes are often flooded, with regular flood alerts issued.

 

Flood wardens

David coordinates a team of six volunteer flood wardens all of whom live in the village. They each have designated areas which they monitor individually for early signs of flooding. When water reaches a certain level, they communicate this information to David, who then determines they next steps. This may involve further monitoring or alerting the Environment Agency and Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council emergency planning officers to a potential issue.

 

Each volunteer flood warden has undergone training for their role which clearly stipulates that volunteers must prioritise their safety and stay well away from all flood water and avoid personal risk. They may be given designated tasks which can range from providing local authorities with local situational awareness, or practical tasks like door-knocking to inform residents about flood warnings, to helping to set up a local temporary place of refuge for residents that may need to leave their homes.

 

Other risks

The parish’s community resilience plan also considers disruption from other eventualities, including impacts of climate and weather changes, such as severe storms, extreme cold and snow, heatwaves, wildfires, loss of essential utilities, as well as major fires, water outages, and industrial incidents.

 

David said: “I appreciate it could feel like a daunting task, but creating our community resilience plan was straightforward and a lot of the support and mitigations are the same whatever the risk– there are also templates and help available to get you started.

 

Community support

The Emergency Planning group has local arrangements in place with several larger venues in the village that have the facilities to cater as temporary places of refuge, including a community hall, a local church and the local Salvation Army Hall. They have also identified some other residents in the village who can also be called on to help in an emergency. These include local 4x4 vehicle drivers, professional chainsaw operators, first aiders, local farmers with tractors, and even the owner of a back-up generator.

 

The Parish Council also has an agreement in place with a local representative of the faith organisation, the Rapid Relief Team, who have kindly offered to provide catering support and distribute emergency food boxes to isolated residents should the need occur.

 

Opportunity to lead and reassure

He added: “As a parish council, having these plans in place is an opportunity to demonstrate good leadership, using all our local knowledge and our good network of local contacts and connections; however, it essential to involve your community too and to search out people with skills, experience and assets that could help.

 

“We are ideally positioned to do this as councillors, and I like to think that our residents can feel a little more reassured that these plans are in place should the worst happen.”

 

David is happy to provide help to other parishes who are looking at creating their own community resilience plan.

 

Need help preparing your local community resilience plan? 

If your parish, town council or community group is looking to develop a community resilience plan and would like some help to get started visit our community resilience page.