Issue - meetings

This was a joint presentation by Laurie Grasty and Paul Lehane.

Mr Lehane commenced his presentation by examining the contents of a ‘Grab Bag’ belonging to an Emergency Planning Officer; in this case the bag was fictional. Out of the bag, Mr Lehane withdrew several items, including ‘lucky dice’, lucky heather, a four leaf clover and a lucky horse-shoe. There was also a piece of wood that Mr Lehane referred to as ‘touch wood’. The common denominator in all of the items was ‘luck’, and Mr Lehane made the point that LBB could not rely on ‘luck’ and had to plan for emergencies and serious incidents.

The Committee heard that an Emergency Response Plan existed, but that LBB only had one Emergency Resilience Officer. This did not compare favourably with other Boroughs:

·  Croydon        4

·  Greenwich  3

·  Lewisham  3

·  Bexley  2

A You Tube video entitled ‘Out of a Clear Blue Sky’ was played.

The link for the video is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMYnPykeT7o&feature=youtu.be

This was a video about different types of emergencies, and the response of emergency services.

The Committee heard that LBB had a statutory duty to assist in dealing with any sort of major incident affecting the borough.

The Committee were informed that LBB had a team of trained volunteers that would assist as required. This included individuals who were trained to manage an emergency control centre. There were also staff trained to work as liaison officers and run rest centres. These would act as the interface between the public and the emergency services.

Ms Grasty informed the Committee that emergency plans had been written for most risks. These could include incidences like a flu pandemic, flooding, gas explosions, power outages and terrorism. Overall control would be with a control room in London. Plans needed to be reviewed to make sure they were up to date, and scenarios needed to be practised. With this in mind, a ‘snow emergency’ scenario was being planned for 9^th February 2017, which was based on the snow event of 2010. 

Another matter that Ms Grasty referenced was the issue of Business Continuity. In the event of a major incident, how would LBB continue to undertake its core functions and services?

It was noted that the last time an emergency response was required was in the summer of 2016, which was a major gas leak in Penge. There was also an incident during Christmas 2016 which was also a gas leak in Penge.

A member stated that in the case of 7/7, the mobile network failed and there were problems with communicating in the London Underground. The member wondered how the Resilience Team would communicate if the same situation was repeated. Ms Grasty responded that the Team did have air way radios but there was no contingency for a mobile network collapsing. A member asked if this had therefore been logged officially as a risk. Another member expressed the view that the mobile network was unlikely to collapse, and that in the case of  ...  view the full minutes text for item 128