Emergency Planning

Under the Civil Contingencies Act the Council has a statutory duty to ensure the resilience of the Council’s response to a ‘major incident’ and a ‘major Incident stand-by.’   Halton Borough Council’s Major Emergency Plan demonstrates the arrangements that are in place to assist in the response to such incidents efficiently and effectively.

The Council has undertaken an assessment of the risks facing Halton and has put in place emergency plans to mitigate the effects of incidents occurring. 

At the time of an incident the Council acts in support of the emergency services and aims wherever possible to lessen the effects of the incident on the people, property and the environment in Halton and to assist with the restoration of normality.

All sensitive information has been removed from this document.

Control of Major Accident Hazard Regulations 2015

The Control of Major Accident Hazard (COMAH) Regulations applies mainly to the chemical industry, but also to some storage activities, explosives, nuclear sites and other industries where the threshold for quantities of dangerous substances identified in the Regulations are stored or used.

To ensure the safety of the community, Halton Borough Council, as the Local Authority, has a statutory duty to write and test an external plan for sites covered by these Regulations.

To ensure the community are aware what actions to take in the event of a major accident on the site, a safety letter and information is sent out every 5 years to the community around the site. This is known as the Public Information Zone (PIZ).

There are currently 9​ COMAH sites in Halton, where 6 sites form Runcorn Site COMAH Operators

Vertellus Specialities Ltd, Lower Bank Road, Widnes, is a Upper Tier COMAH Site, which is located close to the boundary of Halton. The site has a responsibility to ensure local residents and businesses receive safety information, who are located within the Public Information Zone (PIZ) of the site. Due to the close proximity of the site to Halton, a number of residents and business will receive this safety information.

• Safety Information

Flooding

The The North West Flood Hub is a one stop shop to help householders, businesses, communities and landowners across the North West become more flood resilient.

Flood investigations

Under Section 19 of the Flood and Water Management Act 2010, Halton Borough Council as the Lead Local Flood Authority (LLFA), has a duty to investigate incidents of flooding that have a significant local impact.

Reports are investigated if it has one or more of the following impacts: 

• caused internal flooding to a property used for residential or commercial purposes
• resulted in major disruption to the flow of traffic
• posed, or could have posed, a risk to human health
• adversely affected the functioning of critical infrastructure
• caused harmful impacts to environmentally or socially important assets 

The purpose of an investigation is to: 

• investigate the what, when, why, and how the incident took place
• act as a means of identifying potential future recommendations for actions to minimise the risk or impact of future flooding
• These investigations (Section 19 reports) outline recommendations and actions that various organisations and authorities can do to minimise flood risk in affected areas. It is important to note that a Section 19 report is not an in-depth analysis of flooding risks or mechanisms.

Section 19 Completed Investigations

Cheshire Resilience Forum

The Cheshire Resilience Forum is here to prepare for, respond to and recover from any emergency. We bring together your local emergency services, National Health Service and local authorities, plus other agencies who can help to prepare and respond to any event.