There does, at last, seem to be some warmer weather – above freezing anyway – towards the end of this week.

I would like to thank you for all you are doing in the community to ensure delivery of critical services and to keep vulnerable people safe and well. Although we have received over 500 calls for assistance I am certain there are many more people in the community being helped by your organisation, which we are unaware of.

After seeing some of the news stories about people dying during this spell of extreme weather, we do have a number of concerns about vulnerable people in the community who may not have been contacted or visited by any agency, friends or relatives.

I would like to ask if you could check on vulnerable people in the community to see that they are safe and have all the necessary provisions they need. It would really assist us if there are any requests, eg food, medication etc, if people in the community could help. Obviously if there are any specific needs that cannot be provided locally we will do our best to assist.

The Emergency Centre is still open to co-ordinate the response. I am particularly pleased with how this has worked with multi agency representation until Monday of this week. Since then communication with other agencies has been by telephone. Part of the County Council’s Call Centre has also co-located in the Emergency Centre for the past week so that we can provide a joined up response and this has also worked well. The Countryside Ranger Service has been present throughout this period to help provide 4×4 transport.

Staff from the various departments of the County Council and district councils have done a fantastic job in delivering humanitarian assistance to people in the community to keep key services running. This has included:

• Arranging transport for urgent hospital appointments, treatment and operations.

• Arranging transport for key staff from Ambulance Service, hospitals, GPs, residential homes, Police and our own Home Helps.

• Delivering medication.

• Delivering food, heating oil etc.

• Arranging delivery of animal feed.

We have been working closely with colleagues from Environmental Services who have done an amazing job in keeping most or our primary network open during these very difficult conditions.

Thank you.

Ian Shuttleworth
Chief Emergency Planning Officer