Emergency planning put into practice during Wellington bomb hoax

A hoax bomb threat in Telford involved all the emergency services and saw Telford & Wrekin Council staff activating their emergency plan.

It was tested in May when staff used the scenario of a petrol station explosion to test how they would cope, turning the Oakengates Leisure Centre into an emergency centre.

But they found themselves putting the plan into action for real after a suspect package was found in a Wellington Street and taken to the town's police station on Friday, July 10.

Heather Gumsley, head of Telford & Wrekin's civil resilience team, said the first priority was to evacuate people living near the police station at the Heywood Lonsdale apartments.

"Our primary concern was the care of the residents and to get them away from the scene as quickly as we could," she said. "Some of the residents were able to remove themselves from the scene, but for others it was necessary to take them to a rest centre, which is a place of safety.

"In this case, the Rest Centre was the staff canteen at Tesco on Wrekin Retail Park, but if we had a lot more people to deal with, say 200 or more, we would have had to take them elsewhere. We have ten different sites we can use in an emergency.

"Which one we use depends upon the nature and scale of the situation.

"Tesco only joined our emergency planning organisation about nine months ago and this was their first emergency situation – but everything worked exactly as it should have."

The council's Civil Resilience Team hold emergency exercises regularly to prepare themselves and their procedures for a real emergency.

The plan was last used for real during the heavy storm of February 2014.

As well as the civil resilience team, there are another 200 council staff that have designated emergency roles on top of their normal jobs.

Councillor Richard Overton, deputy Council leader who has responsibility for Civil Resilience, said the council has a very important role to play in a huge range of emergency situations and to support the work of the emergency services.

He said: "While we have a small Civil Resilience team, many staff from across the council get involved in a variety of roles to ensure that we can respond and keep local people as prepared, informed and safe as possible if and when an incident occurs."

Helen Gordon, the emergency planning officer, said the way the council dealt with the emergency in Wellington showed that the planning works.

She said: "We hold regular emergency training exercises, the last one being a Rest Centre exercise in May – Rest Centre's being the name we use for places of safety.

"After every emergency situation or exercise we hold an extensive de-brief – and we held one as soon as the incident in Wellington was over," she said.

"Every incident or exercise gives us new information that we incorporate into our plans and documents – emergency planning is a constantly evolving process."

But she said it was not just big organisations that need to be prepared should an emergency arise.

"It is vital that everyone thinks about what they would do in an emergency situation," she added.

"We have produced a booklet outlining the simple steps people can take to ensure they are ready if an emergency arises – that information is also available on our website."

"The advice includes preparing a grab bag, getting your pets ready for an emergency and creating a household emergency plan."

For more further details visit www.telford.gov.uk/emergencies

• Alistair Taylor, 20, from Victoria Avenue in Wellington, has been remanded in custody in relation to the suspect package and will appear at Shrewsbury Crown on September 14.