A text or phone message alert is to be sent to residents as part of a regular exercise to test how agencies would work together in the unlikely event of a major incident at the fuel terminals in Cattedown.
The test message will be sent to residents in the Cattedown area who have signed up to the emergency notification service, managed by Plymouth City Council, to provide public information in the event of an incident at the site which stores and distributes petroleum products.
Residents can sign up to receive the emergency alerts through the Council’s website and those registered on the system that live or work closely to the two fuel sites in Cattedown will receive a test message on 29 November.
Those receiving the test message will not need to take any action.
The messages are just one method for warning and informing the public in the event of a major incident at the fuel distribution sites, which are regulated sites overseen by the Health and Safety Executive and the Environment Agency.
The plans for dealing with the unlikely event of a major incident are set out in the Plymouth Upper Tier COMAH sites External Emergency Plan, which outlines how the City Council, site operators, the emergency services, and other responding agencies would work together to protect the public. The plans include how the public would be informed about an incident and kept updated on any action they might need to take. In August 2022, residents and businesses in the Public Information Zone received a leaflet titled ‘CATTEDOWN MAJOR EMERGENCY SAFETY ADVICE ’: What you need to know in an emergency, which is updated every few years. The leaflet is also available on the Council’s website.
The emergency plan is tested regularly through exercises conducted by the full range of agencies that would be involved in an emergency response.
Ruth Harrell, Director of Public Health for Plymouth, said: “There are extensive plans for dealing with the unlikely event of an emergency at Cattedown and these are regularly tested.”
“We will be testing the emergency notification service as part of an exercise and anyone who is not yet signed up for the free alerts still has time to do so before we test it. There’s information about how to do this on the Council’s website, where you can also find the external emergency plan and the public information leaflet explaining what to do in the event of an emergency.”
To sign up for the free emergency alerts visit the emergencies page on the City Council’s website https://www.plymouth.gov.uk/emergencies