As well as the known and growing risks of climate change – flooding, extreme weather, wildfires etc, we also know that there is a growing risk of food insecurity due to biodiversity loss and global events (such as wars/armed conflict).
The physical effects of climate change events are often localised and will mostly be dealt with by local emergency services and local authorities – local emergency community plans can help by identifying vulnerable people, assisting with evacuations (where necessary) and helping with recovery.
The National Audit Office Risk Register (2025) identifies a number of significant to moderate risks which would likely affect the whole of the UK’s infrastructure – including any communications and services using digital technologies – which is most of them – including emergency services. In these events a hyper local community emergency plan is a vital tool in enabling analogue communication, social cohesion and collaboration that may mitigate vigilantism, organised crime and opportunist profiteering.
Many of the longer term impacts (although for biodiversity cascade risks the National Security Briefing predicted some as soon as 2030 a mere four years away) may be slower acting – ie shortages of foods may be gradual rather than sudden – but the main risk identified (beyond eventual starvation/malnutrition) is societal collapse. Could this be mitigated by better community cohesion and collaboration that is specifically targeted at working together to come through difficult times?
The NAO Risk Register also identifies community response as important:
“For communities, a ‘whole-of-society’ approach to resilience means that where possible, communities recognise their role in, take responsibility and contribute to the UK’s resilience.
Successful community resilience approaches are often based on connection and relationships. Deepened partnerships between statutory responders and the communities they serve can provide benefits and positive outcomes during emergencies, such as an increased understanding of needs in the community, public confidence and motivation to act, and better coordination and integration of collective capabilities to prepare for, respond to and recover from emergencies.”
“When emergencies happen, people often feel compelled to help. Professionals and volunteers train for emergencies, but other members of the community can also be involved through acts of good neighbourliness and spontaneous volunteering. Bringing people and organisations together to form effective networks is key to building community resilience, preparing for emergencies, and making the best use of all available resources. If the worst happens, members of the public can often rally their skills and resources to help their community. No matter who wants to help, what abilities they have, or whether they have volunteered previously, there may be ways for them to help. Even if people feel motivated and able to help, in many cases it is best not to just turn up at the scene of an emergency and begin working. This could be dangerous and overwhelm the emergency services. Instead, it is best to get involved via the structures that have been established in the local area, so everyone can work safely for the benefit of those who need help. This means looking out for calls for support from a local authority, or national and local charities and, most importantly, performing essential acts of good neighbourliness.”
What is already there?
As they say “it is best to get involved via the structures that have been established in the local area” – finding what those structures are, if they even exist, has proved to be a difficult thing (in my town – Maidenhead).
Local Resilience Forums, hold the Community Risk Register and plan but are not that local. They mostly operate at county level or in the case of Thames Valley Resilience Forum the borders match those of Thames Valley Police and cover an area of the 2,200 square miles of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, and Milton Keynes.
The Communities Prepared organisation – that lists local resilience groups (and is signposted to from the Government’s Prepare Campaign website) shows that there are no such groups in the East Berkshire area and only one along the length of the River Thames, even in parts that regularly flood.
Although not updated since 2019 (ie pre pandemic) the Government’s ‘Community Resilience Development Framework’ will prove useful in setting up Hyper-local Community Emergency Planning Groups.
The Communities Prepared website also hosts a useful toolkit – designed for London but adaptable to most localities: https://www.communitiesprepared.org.uk/london-community-resilience-toolkit/.
What do I mean by hyper-local emergency planning
Hyper-local is an area no bigger than a local authority/parliamentary constituency ward but likely much smaller – potentially the size of an electoral/polling district in less densely populated areas and more likely the size of a Neighbourhood Watch area in more highly populated areas. It could be a single housing estate or block of flats or a single road.
The emergency planning part would involve people in that area forming a resilience group (or an existing group taking on the task – for example Neighbourhood Watch, Resident’s Association, etc) coming together to formulate a plan that would help to identify vulnerable and other people in need of support during a range of emergency scenarios and also identify local resources (people with skills, equipment, supplies, shelter, etc) that might be needed or helpful. It would also form links with other such groups in the area and with other local organisations involved in emergency planning (eg local authority, emergency responders, local resilience forum etc).
How can we make it happen/make more of it happen
National Government:
Communications campaign to encourage people to set up local resilience groups and create hyper-local community emergency plans.
Local Government:
Convene, connect, host meetings of relevant partners eg:
- Schools
- Places of Worship / Faith based organisations
- Sports and social clubs
- Voluntary organisations such as Rotary Club, Lions etc
- Local political parties
- Parish Councils
- Neighbourhood and Resident Associations
- Primary Care organisations
- Social care organisations
- Care homes/Residential homes
- Local businesses
- Neighbourhood watch
- Existing resilience groups
- Flood wardens
- Other relevant local organisations
- Representatives of local emergency services
- Interested individuals
Objectives:
Sign up to be part of the development of local groups and local plans.
Identify and create ward level groups (and then recruit at a local level for smaller groups). Within those groups identify a lead co-ordinator.
Create action plans using the toolkit available from Communities Prepared.
Communications:
This is not about frightening people with even more bad news. This is about providing solutions and showing people the strength that already exists within their communities. Once we start to bring people together to think about needs and solutions it becomes clear that within each community we have much of what we need. An example from a group coming together in London – one of the group leads spoke to the owner of a Funeral Directors – they of course offered themselves as a source of body bags and as a mortuary (should such a need arise), but they hadn’t realised – until the group lead pointed it out – that they also had personnel who were trained and experienced in helping people through grief and trauma and that in an emergency with mass fatalities those ‘soft’ skills would be just as vital as the material resources they could offer. In order to have community resilience we must have resilient communities – that identify themselves as a community, that care about the people and place they live in. Some of the work that needs to be done in preparation for any emergency – large or small – is to bring those communities together as an active, everyday force for good.
Current communications around emergency planning focus on the needs of the individual – having 72 hours of food etc – but not everyone has the means to do this – prepping is privilege. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it but we should be prepared to make our resources into community resources and share what we have. Together we can have enough.
There has been much commentary on the rise of depression and anxiety diagnoses and whether this is being over diagnosed. What politicians do not ask themselves (it seems) is whether they have something to do with this. Depression and anxiety seem to me to be entirely sane responses to the world we are living in: climate emergency, biodiversity emergency, political upheaval, war, pandemics, the rise of AI and the risks of technology dependence. To have concerns about all of these things is understandable. What we don’t have is clear directions to the emergency exit, or where the first aid kit is stored or how to put on our lifejacket and find our lifeboat. In most circumstances in our lives where risk is identified – travelling by boat or air for example – we are directed to what to do in an emergency – even if that emergency is unlikely or remote we know that there is a plan and that is reassuring. So, creating hyper local emergency plans that involve everyone in the community may also help to allay some of the anxiety people feel about these future threats – it isn’t going to solve everything but it is something.
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