Preparing, responding and recovering from emergencies
The Government treats emergency planning and civil protection very seriously. This is reaffirmed by the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, legislation which all local authorities must comply with.
The role of the Civil Protection Team is to support the local authority as well as our communities to be prepared to respond to incidents that may affect Gloucestershire – from floods, fires and storms to explosions, power cuts and transport accidents
The team develops emergency response plans to respond to various emergencies and work closely with both County Council and District Councils to train response teams.
To ensure collaborative working with our multi-agency partners the team are an active member of Gloucestershire Local Resilience forum which provides the platform to be able to plan, train, respond and recover together for emergencies.
Under the Civil Contingencies Act, local authorities are classed as Category 1 Responder (core responder), and have a number of statutory duties to prepare for, respond to and support the recovery from emergencies. As a Category 1 Responder, Gloucestershire County Council provides a range of services that may be called upon to provide support during an emergency (e.g. social care, highways, trading standards, animal health and Coroners services) and crucially provide a community leadership role.