The Emergency Planning Section is tasked with ensuring that the Council can respond to major emergencies which arise within the District and/or affect its residents and to ensure that the Council's services can continue to be provided in adverse circumstances. The majority of minor emergencies are dealt with by the various  Services under normal procedures, but arrangements are in place to respond to incidents of a more serious nature. In recent times incidents such as the November, 2000 flooding and the fuel crisis have been responded to under the major emergency arrangements.

The Emergency Planning Section's main task is to ensure that plans are drafted to meet all possible eventualities. With the variety if incidents which could befall the District it would be impossible to put in place specific arrangements for them all. Therefore, the Council has adopted a series of "generic' arrangements which would be implemented regardless of the incident with just a few specific plans for the more likely incidents, such as flooding. These plans are updated 5 or 6 times each year and are comprehensively reviewed in August each year.

The emergency plans are tested at least annually by way of multi-agency exercises with the emergency services and other organisations. In this way we ensure that the Council's arrangements are workable, up-to-date and that they dovetail with the plans of others. Wakefield Council staff also take part in exercises organised by other agencies.

Training of those officers of the Council with a role in an emergency is critical. Up to 20 training courses per year are organised by the Section. Officers also attend relevant courses at the Government's Emergency Planning College near York.

The Section maintains a store of emergency equipment for use in the event of an evacuation, including sleeping bags, blankets and beds and, under a mutual aid agreement with neighbouring local authorities, has access to similar stores in other West Yorkshire Districts. An emergency response vehicle is also available which can be sent to the site of an emergency.       

Arguably the most important aspect of emergency planning is to maintain close working links with other responding organisations. The West Yorkshire Emergency Planning Officers' Forum, which meets every other month, is the way in which these links are maintained at ground level. The Forum is attended by numerous organisations including Local Authorities, emergency services, the Environment Agency, Yorkshire Water, BT, the military and the Regional Government Office.