Emergency planning

Our work on Emergency Planning aims to assess the threats and risks to the Vale, and to prepare the appropriate response and recovery actions that will be needed should an incident occur.

The objective is to minimise the impact of disaster on the day-to-day lives of the community and the environment and to help bring a rapid return to normality.

The response extends our normal activities into the extraordinary circumstances. It may include help with sheltering people who are temporarily homeless (evacuated from a danger area), clearing debris after a fire or explosion or providing sandbags to particularly vulnerable individuals to reduce the effects of flooding.

The risks
 
Aylesbury Vale is a mainly rural area and therefore has fewer risks than more industrialised areas. This does not relieve us of the possibility of major transport incidents, gas leaks, power failures, etc., but tends to reduce the likely scale. Flooding remains one of our most widespread risks. For more information about flooding and protecting your property please follow the link in the left hand panel to our flooding information.

To see at what level of risk from river flooding your property may be, take a look at the flood plain maps on the Environment Agency website by following the link below.

What we do

We work closely with all the other local authorities in Bucks and with a wide range of other statutory and voluntary organisations. We prepare contingency plans and organise major incident training and exercises to prepare for responding to emergencies.

Whatever the incident, our role is to provide support and care to the community and to get things back to normal as soon as possible. Once the threat to life and property has been averted, responsibility for the management of the long term recovery falls to the local authority.

We have carried out an assessment of potential risks in the area, so that we can have plans in place to deal with them, should an incident ever occur. Under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, we are required to do this assessment based on the police area, so this register covers the whole of the Thames Valley. Follow the link below to view the Area Risk Register.

Business continuity

We have also made plans to ensure that our own organisation does not fail, due to the effects of an incident, whether internal or external. AVDC has created a Service Continuity Plan so that we can carry on our services if they are affected by a major incident, such as loss of one of our buildings. We have also considered how we would cope with a significant loss of staff if there were an illness or an epidemic.

What you can do!

In a life threatening situation - call 999.

Personal and family preparation

Do you and your family know what to do in an emergency?  Thames Valley Local Resilience Forum (TVLRF) has produced the 'Are you Ready?' booklet to provide everything you need to know to deal with an emergency.  It has valuable information, hints and tips for individuals, households and businesses, and a handy 'fill in and keep' section for your personal emergency contact details.  Easy to read, this common sense guide helps families, individuals, communities and businesses prepare for hazards including hot weather, flooding, snow, ice etc and how to respond to some incidents.

For further help to prepare yourself and your family to cope in an emergency follow the link below to the government's Preparing for Emergencies website.

To help prepare young people for an emergency why not follow the link below to the Safety Centre in Milton Keynes which is a purpose built interactive education centre for young people.

Volunteering

Follow the Volunteer Involvement link in the side menu if you want to help with your community's response to an emergency and find information about volunteering.

Business preparation

For help with planning how you would continue to operate your business following a disruptive event or emergency follow the link below to the Business Continuity Institute's website or the link to the London Prepared website. For security advice and information on terrorist threats follow the link below to the MI5 website.