Antrim and Newtownabbey: 'Leisure centres will be opened to offer comfort in emergencies'

Antrim Forum and Valley Leisure Centre, in Newtownabbey, have been designated by the borough council as “rest centres”. The council’s Policy and Governance Committee has been informed of procedures that can be put in place during emergency situations.

Elaine Girvan, head of health, safety and resilience, told the committee at a meeting on Tuesday evening emergency plans can be activated during security alerts, murder/PSNI investigations, commercial or domestic incidents where residents become homeless or during loss of mains water for more than 24 hours, for example.

Council buildings will be made available as emergency response centres “while maintaining normal services at an appropriate level”, she added.

Elaine indicated another circumstance in which the council, assisted by emergency services, may occur. Police could arrive on site and make contact with the council “to determine where they will need a rest centre set up”.

“Other types of centres we can offer are friends and relatives’ reception centres and survivor reception centres to provide shelter and a safe place.

“It is one place where we can provide comfort,” she commented. “We can also issue mass casualty kits in event of a major incident.”

However, a more common scenario, she said, is a severe weather incident. “It is the norm now we get severe weather outside the four seasons. When the Met Office issues a severe weather warning, we will look at doing a risk assessment. During a recent wind warning, we closed some of our tree-lined paths. We have other plans to do with gritting.”

Councillors also heard community resilience groups have been set up in Antrim and Newtownabbey to help tackle flooding through provision of sandbags. Sandbags have been made available, she explained, in areas that have experienced flooding previously so that they can be obtained as early as possible.

The officer noted the council also distributes sandbags across the borough and helps with clean-up operations. The local authority can provide HGV drivers to supply water when there is a 24-hour outage.

Michelle Weir, Local Democracy Reporter