Buckinghamshire Council pulls out all the stops in storms response

Council teams have been working round the clock in recent days to keep services running and residents safe during a series of severe weather incidents which began with Storm Dudley six days ago. Storm Eunice hit the county on Friday and has been closely followed by Storm Franklin today (Monday 21 Feb), which has seen further high winds and rainfall across Buckinghamshire.

Council workers and contractors have been clearing roads, dealing with fallen trees and keep vital services going, redeploying staff where needed to bolster the effort. A flood alert has been issued today (Monday) for the River Great Ouse in the north of the county and residents are being urged to check the Environment Agency website for advice and information on how to protect homes and property.

Transport for Buckinghamshire (TfB) teams have responded to more than 380 call outs, mainly to clear fallen trees and deal with debris caused by the high winds. TfB crews have been working continuously on rotated shifts alongside our supply chain partners. De-briefs having been taking place with supervisors and operatives and clean-up works are continuing. The Council has also liaised closely with power suppliers with number of outages over the last three days. Nearly all homes have now been reconnected.

During this period of treacherous weather, Council leaders have enacted emergency planning processes, with regular meetings including across the weekend to assess and review the situation and respond as necessary. Regular updates have been issued to local groups and we’ve kept residents updated via regular messages on the Council’s website. A number of decisions were taken to protect residents and property.

• All schools, which are now on half term, were advised to close on Friday due to the revised Red weather warning
• We closed libraries and Household Recycling Centres on Friday during the height of Storm Eunice
• Temporary short term revisions were made to some waste collection services to allow crews to manage bin collections in the very difficult conditions
• Care service managers have held regular ‘sit rep’ updates to ensure no disruption to critical services for vulnerable residents, such as care visits
• We closed our Country Parks on Friday and are still advising people to avoid travelling to them where possible while rangers continue working to make them safe
• We closed all Family Centres today (Monday 21 February) due to high winds caused by Storm Franklin

Buckinghamshire Council Leader Martin Tett said, “I want to pay a huge tribute to all of our staff and contractors for their herculean efforts to clear debris and damage, to keep services running and to keep residents safe. We’ve worked round the clock holding regular meetings to ensure we have the very latest assessments of the situation to divert resources accordingly. As ever, our priorities have been to maintain critical services, to respond rapidly at dangerous locations such as fallen trees and to ensure the most vulnerable who rely on our services have no interruption to their care.

We’re not out of the woods yet with flood warnings issued in the north of the county today and we’re continuing to ask people to check on their neighbours as not everyone has access to the internet for the latest information. It’s been a really challenging few days, we’ve more unsettled weather to come this week, but I’m proud once again of the way our communities have pulled together in trying circumstances to look out for each other.”