​​Emergency planning and our responsibilities

An emergency is defined as an event or situation that threatens serious damage to human welfare in a place in the UK, the environment of a place in the UK, or war or terrorism that threatens serious damage to the security of the UK.

What is emergency planning?

Emergency planning includes making sure that we are prepared to respond appropriately to a major emergency (such as a major flood, loss of power regionally or the consequences of terrorist actions) as well as being adequately prepared for a disaster that affects our capability to provide services (such as a fire at the office or a failure of IT systems).​

What is our responsibility?

Helping with business continuity

Business continuity is a process detailing the management of services and business during and after an emergency. Find out more about how we help

Risk assessments

The Havering Borough Resilience Forum will contribute to the community risk register for the London Local Resilience Forum, by producing its own risk register for the administrative area of Havering Council through the Havering Borough Resilience Forum Risk Advisory Group.

​Prepare and maintain plans

We maintain our Major Emergency Plan and also develop plans for specific threats (eg flooding) including activities such as planning to set up rest centres and arrange transport.

We work with emergency planning colleagues in other local authorities, emergency services, gas, electric and water companies, facility owners and managers and the voluntary agencies to ensure that plans are compatible, workable and achievable.

Arrange training events and emergency exercises

Havering Emergency Planning Officers are involved in training to ensure that our plans, staff and resources are fit for purpose. With partner organisations, we try to ensure a robust capability to respond to emergency incidents.

Provide the our response to emergency incidents

We are the first point of contact when an incident is notified to us via a 24 hour emergency line (01708 433999).

The Havering Emergency Planning Officer call out list ensures that there is an availability to respond to major emergency calls from the emergency services 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

A Havering Emergency Planning Officer will activate and co-ordinate an appropriate council-wide response to major incidents.

This could include setting up rest centres and assisting with cordoning off roads.

Debriefing

After an incident, the various responder organisations will review the incident through an internal debrief to ascertain key learning points, changes to procedures, appropriateness of resources, and further training needs.

Where necessary, a multi-agency debrief can be initiated by the responder organisations to review aspects of the multi-agency arrangements.

Contact us

Emergency Planning
c/o Town Hall
Main Road
Romford
RM1 3BB

01708 434343 / 01708 433999
emergencyplans@havering.gov.uk