North Yorkshire Council
Corporate and Partnerships Overview and Scrutiny Committee
15 December 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 affecting North Yorkshire Council.
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.
2.2 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).
2.3 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 December 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 Bert |
County wide |
22.11.2025 |
|
Storm Darragh (amber) |
Kirkby Mills & Keldhome areas of Kirkbymoorside |
08.12.2025 |
|
Amber snow warning |
County wide |
03.01.2025 |
|
Avian Influenza outbreak |
Sutton on the Forest |
22.01.2025 |
|
Airwaves radio outage |
County wide |
10.03.2025 |
|
Vessel collision in North Sea |
East coast |
11.03.2025 |
|
Unexploded munition – River Ure |
South of Ripon |
25.03.2025 |
|
Unexploded munition |
Malton |
16.04.2025 |
|
Unexploded munition |
Flaxton |
13.05.2025 |
|
Potential chemical incident |
Scarborough |
03.06.2025 |
|
Drought escalation |
County wide |
19.06.2025 |
|
Langdale fire |
Langdale |
26.06.2025 |
|
Road traffic collision |
Harrogate |
18.07.2025 |
|
Langdale fire (Fylingdales) |
Langdale (Fylingdales) |
12.08.2025 |
|
Missing child |
Richmond |
16.082025 |
|
Residential fire |
Spofforth – Harrogate |
19.08.2025 |
|
Hydrochloric acid spill |
Masham |
10.09.2025 |
|
Amber snow warning |
East side of the County |
19.11.2025 |
|
Fire in industrial unit |
Northallerton |
25.11.2025 |
|
Road traffic collision |
Tadcaster |
01.12.2025 |
3.2 Areas of good practice that will be further developed:
· The co-ordinated response and recovery to the Fylingdales Moor incident, which included:
o Support to Fire and Rescue resources through North Yorkshire Highways
o Evacuation and shelter planning for affected area
o Ongoing community engagement and support
· Winner of the Together Award at the NYC Staff Awards for the Knaresborough flood recovery
· Delivered the National Exercise Pegasus program across North Yorkshire and York
· Ready for Anything Volunteer Conference held at the UK Resilience Academy.
o Our RFA conference theme this year was ‘coastal challenges’, with HM Coastguard being our key guest speaker, Lincolnshire LRF speaking about adopting the RFA scheme and Operation Poetry: Collison of two ships in the North Sea and the impacts on the east coast with LRFs/volunteers working together
· Continual development of the Major Incident Response Team volunteer group who support individuals and organisations affected by critical and major incidents.
o 85 Referrals = supporting 94 individuals and we have provided staff support for 7 teams, 6 within NYC and one for North Yorkshire Police
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 WORK PLAN AND PROGRESS 2025/26
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 Integrated Emergency Planning 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 shown at Appendix A.
5.0 ELECTED MEMBERS ROLE IN INTEGRATED EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT
5.1 In September 2023 the NYC Elected Members Handbook was created and shared with Members. If Elected Members wish to receive another copy of the Elected Members Handbook please contact the RET on the email address provided below.
5.2 Annually the Head of Resilience and Emergencies will provide a report, and when requested attend, each North Yorkshire Area Committee.
5.3 Each Area 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
5.4 The officers supporting each Area Committee are listed below:
|
Area Committee |
Resilience and Emergencies Officer |
|
Harrogate and Knaresborough Area Committee |
Simon Wright |
|
Richmond (Yorks) Area Committee |
Jason Wainwright |
|
Scarborough and Whitby Area Committee |
Lucy Trewhitt |
|
Selby and Ainsty Area Committee |
Wendy Muldoon |
|
Skipton and Ripon Area Committee |
Ray Wood |
|
Thirsk and Malton Area Committee |
Grace Lawes |
5.5 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
5.6 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 2025/26
6.1 For decades the RET have worked with Parish and Town Councils alongside local businesses to encourage them to develop Community Emergency Plans and Community Emergency Groups.
6.2 Although these are voluntary, we have had over a hundred plans developed across North Yorkshire. Community Emergency Plans and Community Emergency Groups heavily rely on individuals within the communities to take ownership and drive committees. As people move on, or are unable to continue to provide the community leadership, it has meant in some situations that there has not been anyone else identified who has the capacity to take it on.
6.3 Community Emergency Plans and Community Emergency Groups continue to be the bench mark we aspire to in developing Community Resilience, an engaged group of local individuals who are able to support their local communities. Where we have not been able to grow or maintain groups we are now developing additional ways to work with local volunteer and community groups to understand the partnerships that already exist who have capabilities to support in an emergency.
6.4 Resilience and Emergencies continues to work with the Council’s Local Engagement Teams, including Communities, Community Safety, the Parish and Town Council Manager, and the Community Anchor Organisations to deliver the Community Resilience Policy.
6.5 Resilience and Emergencies attend a number of communities event to continue to discuss and develop voluntary, community and faith partnerships roles in emergencies. These have included:
· Wider Partnership Conference 2025
· Parish Liaison Meetings
· Community Anchor Organisations Autumn Get Together
7.0 ELECTED MEMBERS – COMMUNITY RESILIENCE PROFILE
7.1 Last year Elected Members were provided with the opportunity of accessing their own Community Resilience Profile.
7.2 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.
8.0 IMPLICATIONS
8.1 There are no financial, legal or equalities implications arising directly from this report as it provides information only.
9.0 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 followings the agreement with Members to provide an annual update.
|
12.0 |
RECOMMENDATIONS |
|
12.1
|
The Committee is asked to: i. Note the information within the report and offer comments. ii. Review the information in Appendix B and: · Offer views on the future approach to sandbags · Agree whether to seek a future report on further developments with the sandbag policy. |
APPENDICES:
Appendix A – Corporate Emergency Planning Group Work Plan 2025/2026
Appendix B – Current considerations on the approach to sandbags
Background Documents: None
Report Author – Matt Robinson, Head of Resilience and Emergencies