Minutes:
13.1 In the wake of Grenfell Tower fire, the chairman allowed Councillor Jenkins to ask about the council’s emergency planning arrangements. The assistant director for corporate governance gave the following response.
13.2 All borough and district councils had statutory responsibilities as category one emergency responders under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004. Eastbourne Borough Council’s overarching emergency plan covered all these responsibilities, was regularly updated, and was on the council’s website. Underpinning the overall plan were subsidiary plans covering the readiness and deployment of rest centres, set up and function of the emergency control centre, and high level potential risks, for example flood/coast protection plans. In addition, bespoke emergency plans were created for specific high risk events such as elections, Airbourne in Eastbourne, and bonfire night in Lewes. The council’s role was to work in partnership with other category 1 agencies such as the emergency services, in responding to major incidents. In most situations, the lead role was taken by the police. Specific council responsibilities included strategic response at gold/silver level, and operational response at bronze level, such things as provision of rest centres, transport, catering, temporary accommodation, support to vulnerable people, road closures, liaison with utilities and other agencies, etc. Depending on the nature of the incident, the council would have a significant and potentially prolonged role in respect of business continuity and recovery. In order to provide this response, the council had a wide range of staff at all levels trained as gold, silver and bronze operatives. Corporate management team were trained to perform at gold and/or silver levels. The council had a pool of 18 senior officers trained as incident liaison officers who rotated the 24/7 emergency call out function a week at a time. Training exercises were frequently held both for strategic and operational staff. The council worked as part of an emergency planning network across East Sussex with the other boroughs and districts. East Sussex County Council provided commissioned officer support and a joined up approach. The council was also part of a mutual aid agreement with neighbouring authorities flexible deployment of the necessary resources in response to major incidents. The council also worked closely with the emergency services and participate in joint training days and was a member of the Sussex Resilience Forum. This was the pan-Sussex multi agency partnership of statutory responders, led by the police and set up to work together to prepare, respond to and recover from emergencies and major incidents
13.3 Councillor Shuttleworth commented further in respect of the specific issues raised by the Grenfell Tower fire. There were no high rise council blocks in Eastbourne; a number of blocks at 3 or 4 stories and one council block of 5 stories. Checks had been done on all blocks and no cladding or other safety issues had been identified. Communications with residents had been reviewed and the website updated with links to fire safety advice provided. The council was working closely with the fire service and building control to check private blocks of flats. To date no areas of concern had been identified.
Noted.