Local Risks
WMC Community Risk Register 2009 is an assessment of the risks within a Local Resilience area agreed by the Resilience Forum as a basis for supporting the preparation of emergency plans. The first step in the emergency planning process ensures that the plans that are developed are proportionate to the risk. The Civil Contingencies Act (CCA) 2004 places a legal duty on responders to undertake risk assessments and maintain them in a Community Risk Register, and publish this register. Risks in this context are those that could result in a major emergency.
Scenarios that we feel you should be prepared for are broken into the following categories…
Business Disruption
A thorough assessment has been made regarding the impact both locally and regionally in relation to disruption to local businesses and the possible failure to deliver their services to the community.
Full account has been taken in this assessment of the experiences of other areas of the country regarding the impact of public disorder situations.
International Crisis/Events
War, oil/gas supply - Full regard has been taken about the impact of any international event / crisis which has the potential to threaten our energy supplies at local level.
Assessments are made based on forecasted weather patterns and previous experience of weather related events.
Some events have been assessed which do not easily fit into the categories contained within the Community Risk Register, but are considered important enough to be identified as potential risks/ threats.
Property and Vehicle Fires - The Fire & Rescue Service provide valuable data relating to these events which is used in assessing current risk profiles.
Building collapse - Specialist Urban Search & Rescue Teams are available within our local area, and their knowledge has been used to determine our response to structural collapse.
Aviation, Rail and Road - a wide range of knowledge and experience exists in relation to these types of incidents, which has been used in the assessment of risk to the community.
Specialist knowledge and our experiences of previous outbreaks have helped shape our assessment of issues surrounding animal diseases.
On-going assessments are made regarding acts of terrorism based on intelligence reports of global events.
West Midlands Police, as part of their continuing strategy to raise awareness and provide precautionary advice to our business community, have provided a booklet for guidance on postal room security.
The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) Emergency Procedures Manual 2002 offers advice and guidance based on experience and good practice.
A comprehensive multi-agency assessment is carried out before any large scale public event held within our local area, which enables effective contingency plans to be put into place.
A comprehensive asessment has been made in relation to all types of potential criminal events within our local community.
Plant or pest infestation. Expert help from the farming community has been used in assessing the risk to the local community from this type of event.
Specialist medical and community health advice has been used to determine our response to large scale human health events. The West Midlands Conurbation’s Strategic Co-Ordinating Group’s Arrangements for Responding to Pandemic Influenza (April 2009) can be viewed here SCG Arrangements for Responding to a Pandemic Influenza V5.0 July 2009
Failure of utilities eg. electricity etc - Assessments have been made regarding the impact to the local community following the failure of any of our utility suppliers.
Industrial Incident/Environmental Pollution
Fire, explosions or contamination at various sites. Detailed knowledge of industrial sites within our local area is used to determine our response to these types of events.