Agenda item

(1)       Stephen Scully (KRF Senior Resilience Officer) asked the Committee to note that Flooding had not been the top priority for the multi-agency emergency planning community since the previous meeting of the Committee.  There had necessarily been a strong concentration on security matters as well as the Grenfell Tower fire response which had involved a great deal of mutual aid support from emergency planners in Kent.  

(2)       Flooding had, however, still been the focus of much local action. Work during the summer had included a flood risk assessment review on all of the county’s multi-agency flood plans, which had resulted in them being updated. KRF had also re-invigorated its humanitarian response, which was a crucial part of its work on flood response.   Work on winter preparedness was also on-going. Press Officers continued to refine protocols for warning and informing and a winter preparedness workshop had also been held for resilience partners.  Advice to businesses was continuing, led by KCC and supported by all the Borough and District Councils.   Further work was taking place on long term risk assessments in relation to climate change. 

(3)       Mr Scully then set out the key activities, which included the attendance by the Duty Emergency Planning Officer at the winter preparedness workshop. The workshop had focused on a number of incident scenarios, enabling partners to learn from one another and share good practice. 

(4)       The Flood Warden workshop had demonstrated the tremendous effort that had taken place since the storms of winter 2013/14. There were now some 200 flood wardens in Kent.   They had asked for a workshop rather than a seminar to facilitate more activity-based training. The feedback from this event had been overwhelmingly positive. 

(5)       Mr Scully then said that Met Office training for resilience partners had been delivered at the Kent Police Training School.    It had been mainly aimed at statutory organisations but had also been made available to the voluntary sector.  This had been very successful and it was planned to hold another one-day session in 2018.  

(6)       The East Coast Flood Group had studied the outcome of Exercise Surge, producing some very strong forward-thinking recommendations.  The next meeting would involve Mr Scully doing a joint presentation with Lincolnshire CC on caravan parks in flood risk areas along the coast. 

(7)       Mr Scully said that the KRF Seminar had concentrated on security, but had nevertheless featured a KRF stand addressing training and exercising, winter preparedness, and the Kent Prepared website.  All the latest information could be found on this website under the “Flood Wardens” heading.

(8)       It had been intended that a Recovery exercise would take place earlier in the year.  It had been re-scheduled for 27 November due to the need to respond to the Grenfell Tower tragedy.   Some of the lessons from Exercise Surge in terms of the consequences of a mass full-scale evacuation recovery operation were still being translated into practice and this process was ongoing. 

(9)       Mr Scully concluded his presentation by referring to two events. These were the surface water flooding in Tunbridge Wells, which had demonstrated the difficulty of predicting and dealing with events of this nature, and the East Coast flood on 4-5 October, where the response co-ordination had been very impressive.   He said that Kent had never worked better in partnership.  This had included very early notification from the EA on the Monday morning of the event being likely to happen at the weekend.  Everything had been in readiness for flood response work, although the trigger point had not quite been reached.

(10)     The Committee agreed to a suggestion from Mr Flaherty that a motion of thanks be given to Stephen Scully for the passion and energy that he had brought to the successful recruitment of Flood Wardens in Kent.

(11)     In heartily agreeing with Mr Flaherty’s suggestion, the Chairman said that there was still a need to recruit more Flood Wardens in parts of the County, and that one untapped source might be young people in schools, Cadet Forces or the Scouts.

(12)     Mr Scully thanked the Committee and replied to the Chairman’s point by saying that the recruitment strategy had thus far focussed on county-wide large-scale sessions.  This year, there would be 10 sessions in specific catchment areas.  Although many of the flood wardens were not as young as they had formerly been, they were all highly committed and available.   He agreed that school cadets and scouts and others should be brought in, not necessarily as individual Flood Wardens but as groups as part of the wider emergency planning community within the parishes.   This meant that they would be able to contribute in any emergency (for example as Snow Wardens).

(13)     Mrs Brown said that there were 35 Flood Wardens and Co-ordinators in Yalding.  It was, however, the Scout Group which undertook vital tasks such as relaying messages or bringing refreshments to the wardens. She underlined the importance of communication, not just during a flooding event, but at all times.  It was especially important to keep in touch with the Flood Wardens during quiet periods by, for example, organising social gatherings.  

(14)     Mr Harwood said that the KRF’s Pan-Kent Flood Group had identified that there was some patchiness in provision of Flood Wardens across the county, with urban areas particularly deficient. A Task and Finishg Group had been established to specifically examine this question.   Specific approaches were being developed in those parts of Kent where there was under-provision.  An example of this was that a training event was scheduled to take place in New Romney on 30 November.     

(15)     RESOLVED that:-

(a)        Mr Stephen Scully be thanked for his presentation; and

(b)          the Committee’s appreciation and gratitude be recorded for the passion and energy that Mr Scully has brought to the successful recruitment of Flood Wardens in Kent.