Community safety

The Kent Community Risk Register is put together by Medway Council in partnership with the Kent Resilience Forum, in accordance with the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 and associated regulations and guidance, all of which can be found on the UK Resilience website (www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/ukresilience.aspx). Its purpose is to assure the people of Kent and Medway that an assessment of potential risks has taken place and is informing the approach to joined-up emergency planning both locally and at the regional and national level.

The inclusion of a hazard or threat in the Kent Community Risk Register does not mean that the Kent Resilience Forum believes the risk will materialise or that if it were to do so, it would be of the scale described. The risk scenarios are reasonable worst case assumptions upon which risk assessments have been based.

Currently the top five risks to Kent and Medway are:

• pandemic flu;
• fire or explosion at a key site;
• flooding;
• fuel shortage;
• extreme heat wave or drought.

The risk assessment group of the Kent Resilience Forum is made up of representatives from the following organisations:

• Kent Fire and Rescue Service (www.kent.fire-uk.org);
• Kent Police (www.kent.police.uk);
• Health Protection Agency (www.hpa.org.uk);
• Environment Agency (www.environment-agency.gov.uk);
• Kent County Council (www.kent.gov.uk);
• Maritime Coast Guard Agency (www.mcga.gov.uk);
• the 12 district councils within Kent.

This group meets regularly to discuss and evaluate the risks that Kent and Medway face and publishes annually updated versions of the The Kent Community Risk Register and Kent Profile document (www.kent.gov.uk/community_and_living/community_safety/emergency_planning/kent_community_risk_register.aspx).

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