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Emergency planning

The Emergency Planning Shared Service’s aims are preparing, maintaining and co-ordinating a robust and effective response to emergencies.

We work with the emergency services and other responders to make sure Sheffield is fully prepared for every eventuality as part of the South Yorkshire Local Resilience Forum. We write plans on how the Council would response to emergencies and incidents.

We also train and exercise with partners to ensure we are prepared and the plans we write work. As well as Planning for emergencies we also have to ensure that the Council can continue to deliver its key services during an incident, no matter how large or small. This is called Business Continuity Planning.

Emergency Planning Committee

An Emergency Planning Joint Committee oversees the shared service and makes sure both councils carry out their duties as Category 1 responders (as described by the Civil Contingencies Act 2004).

The Joint Committee consists of Elected Members (Councillors) from the 2 councils, supported by advisors, officers and other interested parties, as and when required.

The Chair of the Joint Committee rotates between Rotherham and Sheffield Elected Members on an annual basis.

The Joint Committee will meet up to 4 times per year to ensure it carries out its responsibilities as described above and the number of meetings will depend on the business to be discussed. Additional extraordinary meetings may be called if necessary.

For more information please see Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council's site. 

Prepare your community for emergencies

A community may be the local area where you live, just you and a few neighbours or an official Community Forum. In reality we all belong to a number of “communities”, they could be people who live near you, a sports club you belong to, a religious group you attend, your Parish Council etc.

By working together before, during and after an emergency you will be assisting the emergency services who will be very busy, you will also be lessening the impact of the emergency on your community. Depending on the nature and scale of the emergency there is a possibility that the emergency services may not be able to reach the scene immediately, eg large scale flooding.

In such circumstances, the initial response may rely entirely on local people.

You, your friends, neighbours or if you are part of a community groups could:

  • help your neighbours in snow/icy conditions
  • write a local emergency plan
  • sign up to receive flood warnings
  • have a community store of emergency equipment

You can read the Government's Preparing for Emergencies: Guide for communities, accessible from their website.

EPC Resilience is the UK's leading centre for organisational resilience, delivering emergency and crisis management, business continuity, cyber resilience, event and public safety training, exercising and consultancy services.

Contact Emergency Planning Shared Service

Riverside House
Main Street
Rotherham
S60 1AE

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