Meeting Details

Apologies were received from Councillors Back, Bennett, Jepson and Leach.

The Chair explained that this Committee's membership had changed due to changes in the political balance of the Council, therefore, he welcomed the return of Councillor Plummer as a member of the Committee and formally gave thanks to Councillor Green for his work and commitment to the Scrutiny function.

On the proposition of Councillor Gooch, seconded by Councillor Lynch, it was 

RESOLVED 

That the Minutes of the Meeting held on 27 November 2025 be confirmed as a correct record and signed by the Chair. 

The Committee received the response to the pre-set Cabinet Member Scrutiny Session questions for the Cabinet Member with responsibility for Energy and Climate Change who stressed that everything in his portfolio seemed to move on at pace eg last week there had been issues with Sealink and Lion Link returns.  He explained that they were always thinking about what came next eg how to deal with applicants, developers, Local Authorities, Town and and Parish Councils and campaign groups in a constructive way.  Also, with East Suffolk Councillors through the NSIP Working Group and other groups around comms, especially when things were rolling on, such as statutory duties had to be fulfilled in a short space of time.  He concluded that there was an ever increasing desire for acceleration from the Government.

The Chair thanked the Cabinet Member and the Committee raised the following:

• The benefits of the Advance Community Energy Projects Scheme and how it might work.
• Problems charging electric cars at home as transformers could not cope with the demand.
• That communities required targeted help and advice on addressing their energy needs.
• The benefits the District might get from the large energy projects and if the Council could push for anymore, particularly from Sizewell.
• The possibility of using the surplus of renewable energy to create green hydrogen. 
• The Council's budget available for Community Energy projects and if any Government funding would be available.
• How the Sizewell C funding for tourism was being spent to maximise the potential benefits for local communities.
• What the Council was doing to incentivise storage of excess power rather than it going into the National Grid.
• How the Council could help residents to insulate their houses.
• If energy opportunities were being explored between Council departments eg using collected food waste etc.
• If there was any contact with Hinkley Point on the impact on tourism to see if they had similar issues and whether a representative would meet with Councillors.
   

The Chair thanked the Cabinet Member but expressed surprise at the brevity of this response to the pre-set questions given he had not mentioned environmental sustainability which was another part of his portfolio.

The meeting adjourned at 7.25pm and reconvened at 7.30pm.

The Committee received report ES/2737 and the Cabinet Member with responsibility for Community Health stated that Emergency Planning was a responsive service as every disaster was different.  She added that, although it was reactive, the Team was doing everything it could to be as proactive as possible as well.

The Chair invited questions from Members and the following responses were received:

• The Council could have been a better prepared for Storm Babet but, as a result of that and the situation that unfolded, we found that we needed a Resilience Officer so if it happened again, the Resilience Officer would be available to support affected communities.  The Council had also made funds available for immediate use via the Resilience Fund, rather than waiting for Government funding, which had to be administered through the County Council.  In some cases, communities just wanted small amounts of money and that was why the Council had created the Resilience Fund.  Councillor Langdon-Morris did a lot of work in Framlingham during the floods and was key in establishing the Resilience Officer position and the Resilience Fund.
• Councillors should take up the opportunity to attend Emergency Planning Courses to learn what they could do to support their communities and make them more resilient.
• Storm Babet was an unprecedented incident where there was a concentration of rainfall in a very short period of time.  The lead Flood Authority worked with partners to see why communities flooded and they produced a number of reports which included a recommendation to make Community Emergency Plans. The Joint Emergency Planning Unit (JEPU) worked with communities to help them produce Plans. They held webinars and workshops to try to bring people in and the voluntary groups could run through scenarios to test the Plans. They would not prevent flooding but it was hoped communities would be better prepared and understand how the Local Authority and partners would respond.
• JEPU's workshops, webinars etc were open to Towns and Parishes. Emergency Plans were discussed, developed and reviewed and updated on a regular basis. JEPU and Council Officers worked with the Suffolk Resilience Forum to support multi-agency planning and response to incidents.  Although Plans did not cover every risk, the process of developing contingency arrangements allowed them to be used flexibly for any emergency.  If a parish did not have an Emergency Plan then they were urged to do so and ask for help to produce them.  Of the 177 parished areas in East Suffolk (many were grouped together) 20 Emergency Plans had been completed and 28 were pending.
• A short briefing note would be prepared for Ward Councillors to help explain the benefits of an Emergency Plan and help them encourage Parishes to attend one of the regular Workshops where they could find out more information.
• JEPU or the Resilience Officer attended Community Partnerships to provide information about resilience and the importance of having a Plan.
• If there were insufficient volunteers in one parish, having a cluster of small parishes completing an Emergency Plan was an alternative idea.  However, one of the biggest problems was volunteers because any initial response to an incident relied a lot on them.  The Council was a Category 1 Responder so we were the same level as Police, Fire etc but there was only one person from JEPU on duty, hence the reliance on community volunteers to support the vulnerable.  One of the things that stopped Plans being up to date was the volunteers moving on.
• The Team was confident they were prepared for an incident at Sizewell B because the Regulations required regular reviews of emergency arrangements and testing of the Plans with partners. 
• We operated under the Radiation (Emergency Preparedness and Public Information) Regulations and had a consequence report from Sizewell B which stated what public protection measures were required at certain distances. Permanent residents who lived within 1.35KM of Sizewell B were on an automated database and were provided with iodine tablets.  There was no requirement to provide stable iodine beyond 1.35KM. The County Council was the duty holder and required to implement UK Regulations by assessing risk and deciding public protection measures which was why stable iodine was not issued to everyone.  The Resilience Forum did have stable iodine stockpiles in and around Leiston that could be used should it be needed.  Sizewell C would have a different reactor so it would have its own consequence report and public protection measures.
• The Council had its own resources trained for an emergency and, in conjunction with JEPU, a list of volunteers was maintained eg to open and run a rest centre for people made temporarily homeless. 
• As part of the LGR preparations, a Project Team was considering how the emergency planning function would be delivered in future. The Shadow Authority would need to decide whether to have three JEPU's, one for each unitary, or just one covering the whole of Suffolk.  There was a question over budgets as JEPU's budget was reduced at County level for the last financial year, although Districts continued to support the existing JEPU structure.  
• JEPU had undertaken a national power outage exercise based on the complete shutdown of the national grid.  It was one of the hardest scenarios they had had to deal with as there was no simple solution because everything would be down.  The Council also ran its own business continuity exercises which were grouped eg  loss of staff, fuel, power etc and staff were presented with a scenario and asked how they would deal with it.
• The Resilience Forum worked with many partners including MHCLG and they had a Resilience Advisor who attended multi-agency meetings and was able to access national resources.  The allocation of national resources was something which was practiced regularly to ensure that resources were allocated based on need and priority.
• Local responders had stock for most things but we would also rely on the Government for some elements eg water rescue teams with boats that were allocated where the impact was or portacabin type resources if large numbers of people were made homeless.  The military was the default backstop and a military adviser sat in the Multi-Agency Co-ordinating Group.
• To warn the public of imminent danger, JEPU could access the Government's Emergency Alert through the Cabinet Office and this was tested recently during Exercise Eagle, the response to a radiological incident at Sizewell B.  Alerts could be targeted to specific areas.  The Cabinet Office maintained a Watch Duty Officer who could give access to it.
• The Council no longer had satellite emergency phones as the Government had stopped funding.  There used to be one at Riverside and East Suffolk House.  The Police now had resilience communications so the Team would go to them if necessary.

The Chair stated that he had found the discussions generally reassuring and suggested the report be noted unless the Committee wished to debate any recommendations.

Councillor Molyneux queried the relationship between JEPU and Sizewell C and Councillor Candy referred to Councillor Daly's earlier comments regarding Sizewell C and reassured Members that, in the event of a disaster at Sizewell, all the necessary processes would kick in.  The Emergency Planning Officer stated that, throughout the planning process for all the NSIP's, JEPU had an input to the Development Consent Orders to ensure that appropriate contingency arrangements were included.  They also scrutinised very carefully any potential impact on Sizewell B.  Councillor Molyneux also asked if there was an overlap between Sizewell C and the Council's Community Energy Project.  The Cabinet Member stated that in an ideal world they would have more resources and could target them but it did not cover them at the moment.

Councillor Clery asked if there was a target for getting the rest of the town and parish councils on board with Emergency Plans and the Emergency Planning Officer stated that they relied volunteers so Officers tried to encourage them but it was difficult, although they would review ways to encourage them.

In the absence of any formal recommendations from the Committee, it was agreed that report ES/2737 be noted.

On the proposition of Councillor Deacon, seconded by Councillor Lynch it was

RESOLVED

That under Section 100A(4) of the Local Government Act 1972 (as amended) the public be excluded from the meeting for the following item of business on the grounds that it involved the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in Paragraph 3 of Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Act.