Emergency Plan

The East Dean and Friston Parish Emergency Plan is intended to provide a Parish-led self-help response during any emergency affecting the community when the normal emergency response by the ‘blue light’ services, or others is delayed because of the scope or nature of the emergency. In the absence of the emergency services, the Parish Emergency Response Team (PERT) will lead the community response and act as a central point for information and communication for the community, emergency services, District and County Councils.

Although there are no statutory responsibilities for communities to plan for, respond to, or recover from emergencies, it is good practice to identify hazards and make simple plans on how they could respond to them. The Parish Council is not an emergency service and therefore response will generally be confined to looking after the welfare of people in the community or helping to maintain the infrastructure. The aim of the Plan is to provide a framework for the Parish to mobilise local people to help others in the community by harnessing local resources and expertise to assist in an emergency. The Plan aims to increase resilience within the community by enabling the Parish to support itself when outside assistance from the emergency services or others is significantly delayed or overwhelmed to the extent that they cannot deal with the situation within an acceptable timeframe.

The current version of the Emergency Plan was implemented by the Parish Council in September 2018.

The council has also produced a self-help leaflet for use in cases of emergency: Self Help Guide