Agenda item

The Director of Delivery, Communications and Political Governance will give a presentation on the City Council’s response to the Hinckley Road explosion.  The Commission is recommended to receive the presentation and comment on the issues raised.

The Chair reminded the Commission that court proceedings had arisen from this incident.  The Commission could not discuss these, or speculate about what caused the incident, or why, so all Members were asked to refrain from such discussion.

The Director of Delivery, Communications and Political Governance gave a presentation on the City Council’s response to the Hinckley Road explosion, explaining that:

The Director of Delivery, Communications and Political Governance gave a presentation on the City Council’s response to the Hinckley Road explosion. The presentation included explanatory background about the Council’s Emergency Planning function and the role of the Council in relation to major incidents.

The Director went on to explain that lessons learned in the response to the Hinckley Road major incident were:

·           There had been excellent multi-agency team working based on well-established relationships along with an excellent response from volunteers, including those from the local community;

·           The importance of putting the victims and the families at the forefront of all decisions taken;

·           Practical arrangements for those who had had to leave their properties, often with nothing other than the clothes they were wearing, had generally worked well, including the provision of temporary accommodation in a number of cases;

·           The importance of considering and managing the resilience of staff and others involved in the response as such incidents could be very testing of personal resilience;

·           Consistency of key messages was important and people valued personal contact in the delivery of these messages through, for example, letters and face to face contact;

·           Establishing who lived in the properties affected and identifying them was a problem.  The properties affected were privately owned houses of multiple occupation and leased to residents and businesses, but lessons were learned in how this information could be gathered more effectively in the future;

·           Vulnerable people in the area had been identified very quickly;

·           Finding translators at night had been challenging although practical solutions had been found, often utilising the language skills of the Council’s own staff and of volunteers;

·           The Council was not used to working in a response-type structure.  In the future, normal chains of command needed to be removed from the situation and clear lines of incident command followed; and

·           Things would always happen that had not been anticipated, so flexibility was needed.  For example, in this incident, arrangements needed to be made for people who had had to leave their properties to receive post and get bank cards to give them access to their bank accounts.  It also transpired that there were water courses running under the road, which would have been problematic if blocked.

At the invitation of the Chair, Councillor Cassidy, one of the Ward Councillors for this area, addressed the Commission in his capacity as Chair of the Hinckley Road Recovery Committee, making the following points:

o    There was no set guidance for how events of this nature should be responded to, but lessons learned from national experience were used;

o    The day after the incident, a public meeting had been held at Dovelands School.  This had been crucial in addressing the many rumours circulating, (especially on social media), and in helping young people who were trying to find out what had happened to friends;

o    Three of the victims had close connections with English Martyrs’ Catholic School, so it had been very important that the School was treated as part of the official response to the incident;

o    The response by English Martyrs’ Catholic School to the incident had been exemplary.  Actions taken included holding a small service soon after the incident;

o    A Community Recovery Committee was established to provide a link between local people and agencies and the Council led Recovery Co-ordination Group.  It also offered a channel for information to feed to residents and businesses.  The Committee was a multi-agency body, but also included community and business representatives;

o    A patch walk had been held a week after the explosion, as it was felt to be very important to get around the area to meet people and hear their concerns.  The Police had accompanied the Ward Councillors on the walk.  As the site of the explosion was on the border of other wards, the Ward Councillors for those wards also had taken part;

o    Although the response to the explosion was based on ward boundaries, it became evident that some very strong communities existed in the area that did not follow ward boundary lines;

o    It was felt to be important that meetings of the Community Recovery Committee were held locally, so they were held in St Anne’s Church Hall.  This was where people had gone on the night of the explosion, so had a connection to the event;

o    Local priorities for the Community Recovery Committee were identified from the results of the patch walk;

o    Following a further visit to the area with a number of Council officers and Ward Councillors, a number of opportunities to improve the area were identified.  These would be incorporated in to an action plan;

o    In order to support and inform the local community, a well-attended Community Ward Meeting was held at the Sir Charles Napier Public House on 12 July 2018;

o    An important aspect of communication was managing expectations, as some things would not happen until some time after the incident; and

o    The Community Recovery Committee would not be holding any further meetings until after the current court proceedings in relation to the explosion had been completed.

In conclusion, Councillor Cassidy advised that this had been a challenging time, but he had felt fortunate to have had the close support of officers from the Council and other agencies.  He suggested that, as part of the role of local councillors as community leaders, it would be useful for Member development training in the future to include work on community leadership in difficult times.

On behalf of the Commission, the Chair thanked everyone who had been part of the response to this explosion for their work.

Some concern was expressed that the Community Recovery Committee was pulling out of the area during the trial, but Councillor Cassidy assured the Commission that, although the Committee would not be meeting during the trial, its work in the community would continue.  Councillor Cassidy stressed that the Committee did not deal with individual trauma, but considered things from a community perspective.

The Director of Delivery, Communications and Political Governance also assured the Commission that educational psychologists worked closely with schools and young people in situations such as this.  It was known that symptoms of post-traumatic stress could occur some time after an incident, so a health resilience partnership, (a sub-group of the Resilience Partnership), was considering what was needed in relation to this.

It was recognised that the site of the explosion was now empty, which could attract anti-social behaviour, but as the site was privately-owned it would be for the owners to determine what would happen to it.  The Council was in dialogue with the site owners, so the concerns of local people about potential anti-social behaviour could be passed on.

The Director of Delivery, Communications and Political Governance advised that Ward Councillor involvement in the response to this incident had worked well, so any support and encouragement that could be given to Councillors to undertake preparedness training would be welcome.  Member development training on emergency planning was planned for the next Council year.

The Commission noted that a Community Recovery Committee was not established after all incidents.  Any of the partner organisations could declare a major incident and when this was done tactical and strategic co-ordinating groups were set up.  These groups determined whether the circumstances of each incident warranted setting up formal recovery groups, based on the individual circumstances of that incident.  Ward Councillors should always be key in that dialogue.

AGREED:

1)    That the Commission’s thanks be extended to all involved in the response to the Hinckley Road explosion for their work, both at the time and ongoing; and

2)    That the Director of Delivery, Communications and Political Governance be asked to make the owners of the explosion site aware of concerns about the possibility of anti-social behaviour happening at the explosion site while it remains empty.