Since May, local authorities have a legal duty under the Civil Contigencies Act 2004 to provide advice and assistance to businesses about business continuity management, and how a council can help in planning for and coping with emergencies.
Such events – floods, fires or disruption to power supplies – may be few and far between, but when they do happen, they can have a devastating effect on a business.
Barry Frost, Security and Emergency Planning Manager for Sunderland City Council, says: "Hopefully most businesses will never have to deal with an emergency, but it makes good business sense to think about how your business would cope if you were faced with an emergency and to plan for such an eventuality.
"Businesses need to ask themselves questions like how would they cope with no power or running water for several days, what they would do if they couldn’t get to their premises if for some reason it had to be cordoned off for any length of time, how would their business cope with 25 per cent of their staff absent at any one time or what might happen if their computer system went down with all their customer information on it."
The council points out that last year a Durham-based bakers had to move to temporary premises after its factory was destoyed in a fire and closer to home, businesses in Hendon, including a busy medical centre, were locked out of their premises for a couple of days following the discovery of an unexploded World War Two bomb in Suffolk Street n 2002.
Spelling out the need for businesses to plan for emergencies, Bryan Rees, Regional Resilience Director at the Government Office for the North East says: "The experience from the Bishopsgate and Manchester bombs in 1993 and 1996 showed that businesses that had business continuity plans were more likely to stay in business and recover quickly from an emergency than those that had no plans. Even small emergencies can disrupt businesses and they happen closer to home. Remember January 2005 when the River Tyne flooded and Hexham lost its mains water supply for a week – businesses that needed running water to prepare food had a real problem. Remember the widespread power loss in Newcastle and North Tyneside in October 2005 – the Metro couldn’t run, traffic lights were off and 30,000 premises had no power – what if that had gone on for a few days?
In March, a building fire on The Close in Newcastle led to the closure of The Copthorne Hotel for five days; it had to deal with the unexpected consequences of someone else’s emergency, finding beds in other hotels for its guests. All of these emergencies disrupted normal business and affected profits and operations.
"Such disruption is bad for employees, shareholders, customers and communities, so it’s good business sense to have a plan that will get you through the emergency and enable your business to recover quickly. Don’t try to plan for every possible emergency. Plan for the risks that you are likely to face. Consider the impact on the business if any of those risks happened, and once you know the impact you can then plan to deal with them. We use this proportionate approach in government planning for emergencies and you can use it too."
A city centre evacuation plan for Preston has been unveiled.
Drawn up with local police, fire and health authorities, and city centre stakeholders, the document outlines the actions that would need to be taken if the city centre was faced with an emergency. As Preston council says, this brings it in line with other UK cities including neighbours Manchester and Liverpool. Once established, there is potential for the scheme to be broadened to assist in reduction of city centre crime, the council adds.
What they say
Roger Carter, the council’s emergency planning officer, said: “Having a city centre evacuation plan is about being prepared for any eventuality and improving the resilience of the city centre in response to a multitude of possible disruptions. The plan is a measure that enables authorities, businesses and residents across the city to coordinate efforts should the unexpected ever happen.”
Councils now have a duty to warn and inform members of the public about potential risks within their area, and the plan is a way of doing this whilst educating people at the same time. Led by the police, the plan incorporates the Preston Emergency Notification System (PENS). This involves existing communication methods such as the radio systems used in shops and pubs, the media and iTex. The iTex system allows the police to send out an alert or standby message to all those signed up to the scheme, via text or email, within 10 seconds of activating the system. The message will include information relating to the emergency and will advise on which part of the plan to put into action.
Key partners, including the shopping centres, transport organisations and commercial leaders, are on board and, following the launch of the plan, the council is now working to encourage as many city centre businesses as possible to sign up to the scheme – the first in the country to be provided free of charge using existing resources. The plan also includes details of emergency assembly points, rest centres, transport routes out of the city centre and other relevant information.
Insp Richard Cox, of the Operations Planning Dept at Preston Police Station, said: “Because of events that have happened in this country over the past few years, such as the Manchester bomb and the bombs in London last July, it is important that the council, the emergency services and other agencies have a plan in place, so that everyone with responsibilities has clearly defined roles as to what to do should a full or partial evacuation of the city centre be required.” Anne-Marie Flynn, marketing manager for Preston City Centre Management Company, said: “It’s important that city centre businesses are aware that in the event of either a small scale or large scale emergency there are procedures in place to help minimise the impact on both their businesses and their customers.”
For details of the City Centre Evacuation Plan on the council’s website:
