Cornish communities urged to prepare for emergency

Communities in Cornwall are being encouraged to work together to draw up emergency plans.

Cornwall Council's cabinet member for community safety, Thalia Marrington, said it was important all towns and parishes were prepared for risks around weather and connectivity.

It comes as the government has launched a national public awareness campaign to help households prepare for extreme weather and everyday emergencies.

A study by the National Association of Local Councils (NALC) found nationally fewer than half of parish and town councils had a formal emergency plan, and nearly a third had none at all.

Marrington has written to Security Minister Dan Jarvis, highlighting the vulnerabilities in Cornwall as a "remote peninsula with dispersed communities" where disruption "can have disproportionate impacts on residents, businesses, and public services".

She told the BBC: "If you're in an urban centre, it possibly doesn't matter as much; but it does really down here and we have to make sure we can still communicate with the outside world and tell people if we're having a problem or we're cut off.

"It feels like there are a lot of threats - whether it's cyber attacks or just world events with wars going on and the impact on fuel.

"I don't think it's about being alarmist, but I think it's about being practical and there are a lot of pressures on emergency and public services from all these extra threats as we go from wildfires straight into floods and storms."

There is no statutory obligation for town and parish councils to have an emergency plan.

Cornwall Council has an emergency plan toolkit on its website and said it was offering support for local arrangements that promoted resilience.

A rural coastal community that knows a lot about emergency response is Boscastle in north Cornwall, which was hit by a devastating flood in August 2004.

Ian Peyman is a member of Forrabury & Minster Parish Council and part of a group working up a policy that "puts the community response first".

He said: "It could be anything these days.

"Obviously flooding was a key thing that happened here, but communication is a big one for us.

"The copper [telephone] landline is being removed and the geography of the village means we could be easily cut off with with no power, no internet and no mobile coverage."

Last month, MPs warned plans to switch off the UK's traditional landline phone network could leave people in remote areas unable to contact help in an emergency.

In Boscastle, a red and green leaflet has been distributed throughout the village with information about how to prepare and what to do if the emergency plan is activated.

Peyman said: "It's designed for people to put in their windows and lets people know whether the person in the property is OK or not.

"Green side showing is good and red is bad and, if there's nothing displayed in the property, there's a reason to go and knock on somebody's door.

"I've heard the word 'preparedness' so many times recently, not just from the government.

"We can't rely on services coming running over the hill to help us in the event of an emergency. We need people in the community to make the plan happen."

In Mawnan Smith, near Falmouth, home care company owner Hannah Christophers started an emergency group after Storm Goretti.

She said: "We were cut off for two or three days and that's when I came to the parish council because I know of situations where ambulances were unable to come to the village.

"The group is all about what can we give our community, what can we equip them with - the skills, the tools, the resources to be more prepared and ready for next time."

Christophers said she was also offering nearby communities her own pack of what she had found helpful when starting the emergency group "so no-one's starting from scratch".

Cornwall Council said it knew there were a number of community emergency plans in development across the county, as well as those focused on specific issues such as flooding, health and wellbeing and supporting vulnerable residents.

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