North Yorkshire Council

Scarborough and Whitby Area Committee

6 June 2025

Resilience and Emergencies Annual Update 2025

1.0 PURPOSE OF REPORT

1.1 This report provides an update on progress and incidents impacting emergency planning and community resilience within the Area Committee and wider council area.

2.0 BACKGROUND

2.1 Under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 (CCA) North Yorkshire Council (NYC) is defined as a Category 1 organisation.

The CCA is the driver for how agencies prepare and plan for emergencies, working

nationally, locally and co-operatively to ensure civil protection in the UK.

The Act places a statutory duty on the NYC to:

· Assess the risk of emergencies occurring and use this to inform contingency planning,

· Put in place emergency plans,

· Put in place Business Continuity Management arrangements,

· Put in place arrangements to make information available to the public about civil protection matters and maintain arrangements to warn, inform and advise the public in the event of an emergency,

· Share information with other local responders to enhance co-ordination,

· Co-operate with other local responders to enhance co-ordination and efficiency; and

· Provide advice and assistance to businesses and voluntary organisations about business continuity management (Local Authorities only).

Emergency Planning and Community Resilience should aim where possible to prevent emergencies occurring, and when they do occur, good planning should reduce, control or mitigate the effects of the emergency. It is a systematic and ongoing process which should evolve as lessons are learnt and circumstances change.

3.0 INCIDENTS AFFECTING NORTH YORKSHIRE BETWEEN 2024/2025

3.1 Between April 2024 and the production of this report NYC and its Local Resilience Forum partner agencies have come together to respond and recover from the following incidents:

Incident	Locality	Date
Storm Kathleen	North Yorkshire wide	06.04.24
Knaresborough flash floods	Harrogate and Knaresborough	06.05.24
Critical incident, Carlton-in-Cleveland	Richmond and Northallerton	22.05.24
Fire at Molson Coors Brewery Company, Tadcaster	Selby and Ainsty	13.06.24
Fire at The Princess Fish and Chips, Scarborough	Scarborough and Whitby	25.06.24
Prison capacity pressures	UK wide	15.07.24
Potential public disorder	UK wide	08.08.24
Fire at Grange Avenue, Scarborough	Scarborough and Whitby	23.08.24
Fire at King Street, Pateley Bridge	Skipton and Ripon	04.09.24
Fire at Hagg Farm, Hagg Lane, Cawood	Selby and Ainsty	19.10.24
Fire at Allerton Grange Farm, Allerton Park	Harrogate and Knaresborough	22.10.24
Storm Bert	North Yorkshire wide	22.11.24
Storm Darragh	North Yorkshire wide	06.12.25
Amber Snow Warning	North Yorkshire wide	03.01.25
Avian Influenza Outbreak	Several across North Yorkshire	22.01.25
Storm Eowyn	North Yorkshire wide	24.01.25
North Sea vessel incident	North Sea	10.03.25
Unexploded ordnance – River Ure	Ripon	25.03.25
Unexploded ordnance – Flaxton	Flaxton – Ryedale	13.05.25

3.2 Areas of good practice that will be further developed:

· Working in partnership with the Chain Lane Community Anchor Organisation (CAO) during the Knaresborough flood incident to support local residents from the Local Assistant Centre.

· The further development of the NYC sandbag offer to allow for members of public to self-serve from key sites.

· To embed a more resilience out of hours command structure by having standby Bronze Commanders covering the East, West and Central Areas of the County.

3.3 If Elected Members have any views or recommendations on any of these incidents, please send them through to emergency@northyorks.gov.uk

4.0 NORTH YORKSHIRE COUNCIL’S CORPORATE EMERGENCY PLANNING GROUP AND SCARBOROUGH WHITBY INTEGRATED EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT GROUP WORK PLAN AND PROGRESS 2024/25

4.1 The following is set out within the NYC Resilience and Emergencies Policy:

· The organisation has appointed the Assistant Chief Executive – Local Engagement as the Accountable Emergency Officer (AEO) responsible for Resilience and Emergencies.

· The Resilience Cycle is co-ordinated for the Council by the Head of Resilience and Emergencies and the Resilience and Emergencies Team (RET).

· The Assistant Chief Executive – Local Engagement chairs the Corporate Resilience and Emergencies Group (CREG). The CREG is made up of a number of Senior Managers within NYC who have a role to play in ensuring CCA Duties. The CREG hold responsibility for setting and delivering an annual work plan.

· The current work plan and progress of the Corporate Emergency Planning Group is found at Appendix A.

4.2 The Scarborough and Whitby Integrated Emergency Management Group is a multi-agency forum for emergency service officers. The group meets quarterly to anticipate, assess, prevent and prepare for emergencies and major incidents.

Currently the group is focusing on:

· Marine Pollution plan – updating following learning from the recent North Sea incident.

· Scarborough Town Centre Evacuation Plan – following the release of the Protection of Premises Act (Martyn’s Law).

· East Coast Flood Plan – due a three-year review.

· Scarborough Landslip – ensuring any identified risk areas are reviewed.

5.0 ELECTED MEMBERS ROLE IN INTEGRATED EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT

5.1 Each Area Constituency Committee is allocated a Resilience and Emergencies Officer. They will work with Elected members to ensure:

· Elected members training,

· that local risks are identified within your locality,

· that community resilience has been developed,

· that resources and capability gaps are identified, as well as difficulties in communicating these risks to specific groups within your electoral division are co-ordinated.

5.2 Elected members are then asked to provide ongoing support to develop Integrated Emergency Management within their electoral divisions. This will include:

· Supporting the communication of community risks

· Provide leadership in developing community resilience.

· Work with the locality Resilience and Emergencies officers to identify opportunities for funding resource gaps.

· Support training and exercises for community groups.

5.3 If Elected Members wish to discuss any of these roles and responsibilities with their allocated Resilience and Emergencies Officer, please contact emergency@northyorks.gov.uk

6.0 COMMUNITY RESILIENCE WORK PLAN AND PROGRESS 2023/24

6.1 For decades the RET have worked with Parish and Town Councils alongside local businesses to encourage them to develop Community Emergency Plans.

6.2 Following the community support during the Covid pandemic, Resilience and Emergencies has been working with the Council’s Local Engagement Teams and the Community Anchor Organisations to further develop its Community Resilience Policy.

The role out and engagement on the policy was delivered through three Community Resilience workshops which occurred in April 2025.

6.3 The Resilience and Emergencies locality officer has recently been working with the following communities:

· Egton Parish Council – delivered presentation at recent Parish Meeting and provided Community Plan for them to complete and have been providing assistance.

· Whitby CAO – Flash Company Arts – met CAO to discuss community resilience, attended Whitby Community Alliance Meeting, planning a resilience training session at the Library, CAO are completing a plan.

· Esk Valley CAO – Revival North Yorkshire – delivered presentation, provided community plan for them to complete and have been providing assistance.

· Cavca – Green Lane Centre, Hungate Centre, The Street – have had email correspondence and arranging a meet up to discuss.

· Cayton Bay – attended their quarterly flood/snow group meetings and they are completing a community plan.

· Goathland Parish – have had email correspondence and arranging a meet up to discuss.

Elected Members – Community Resilience Profile

6.4 Last year Elected Members were provided with the opportunity of accessing their own Community Resilience Profile.

These are owned and reviewed by the RET and Elected Members can access their profile, as well as discuss their developments, via their allocated Resilience and Emergencies Officer.

7.0 FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS

7.1 There are no financial implications arising directly from this report as it provides information only.

8.0 LEGAL IMPLICATIONS

8.1 There are no legal implications arising directly from this report as it provides information only.

9.0 EQUALITIES IMPLICATIONS

9.1 There are no equalities implications arising directly from this report as it provides information only.

10.0 ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS/BENEFITS INCLUDING CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACT ASSESSMENT

10.1 There are no equalities implications arising directly from this report as it provides information only.

11.0 REASONS FOR RECOMMENDATIONS

11.1 The recommendations contained below are to engage with and invite comments from Members on the content of this report, which follows the agreement with Members to provide an annual update.

12.0 RECOMMENDATION

12.1 Committee Members are requested to note the information within the report and offer comments.

APPENDICES:

Appendix A – Corporate Emergency Planning Group Work Plan 2025/2026

Background Documents: None

Report author – Matt Robinson, Head of Resilience and Emergencies

Corporate EP Group – Area of work	Comment
Incident Response and Recovery	Ensure that the Council maintains Gold, Silver, Bronze, Incident Support and Resilience and Emergencies Duty systems. A priority for this year is to understand how the ongoing restructures affect the Council’s ability to anticipate, assess, prevent, prepare, respond and recover to emergencies. This involves building new networks of staff and where required develop new processes.
Community Resilience	Continue to develop the NYC Community Resilience Policy and further engage with CAOs, Community Partnerships, and Parish and Town Councils.
Use of data in an Emergency	Further create an efficient information (incident) management system used by NYC in bringing together data and intelligence to support the response and recovery to incidents.
Community sandbag stores	Continue to develop the sandbag response of the Council and agree the Community Sandbag offer.
Annual Corporate Emergency Planning Group	· Corporate Emergency Planning Group enabling NYC do maintain a Resilience Cycle. · Deliver the annual cycle of plan writing, training, exercise and lessons management process. · Specific action on how emergency services access in the Council in emergencies and major incidents. · How emergency services and community groups contact the council for emergencies and major incidents. · Horizon Scanning of risk update for Management Board · COMAH Bowker.