Business resilience in Leicester and Nottingham

Our final two business resilience workshops in the current series were held in Leicester on 25th February and in Nottingham on 6th March 2014. These workshops were delivered in partnership with the Environment Agency and attended mainly by companies regulated by the EA. The participants came from a wide range of sectors including construction, renewable energy, agriculture, waste,  food and drink, and universities. British Gas hosted the Leicester workshop at their Energy Academy, and Nottingham Trent University hosted the Nottingham workshop at their Clifton Campus.

Both workshops included presentations from Climate East Midlands, the Environment Agency, the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health, and Local Authority Emergency Planners.

The Environment Agency speaker, Zoe Wharmby, explained that the prolonged flooding we have experienced recently (e.g. summer 2012 and winter 2013-14) has been stretching the EA's ability to respond. Flooding incidents used to generally last for a few days, but now they tend to go on for weeks. To cope with this trend, the EA is training more staff and moving staff around the country to support affected areas.

At the Leicester workshop, a couple of companies in the food sector shared interesting stories of how they'd been affected by severe weather:

• A poultry company had a barn roof collapse during strong winds, and discovered that their staff's immediate emotional reaction - to go in and try to rescue the chickens - could in fact put the staff in danger. So they realised that they needed to train staff in what to do in such an emergency so that they did not put themselves at risk.
• A food manufacturing company noted that the wet summer of 2012 badly affected the British wheat harvest. Therefore companies resorted to importing grain from abroad, which caused issues for companies who prided themselves, and advertised their products, based on the fact that they were made with British wheat.

Useful tips to emerge from the Nottingham workshop included:

• Put reciprocal arrangements in place with other companies producing similar products.
• Create a "safe haven" where staff can shelter inside a building or under cover, in case the situation means that they can't get to their cars, or it's raining, or there is some other disturbance outside.
• It could be worth considering setting up a "ghost office" that is all set up and ready to be used in the event of an emergency.
• It's useful to have an old-fashioned analogue phone to use in case a power cut prevents digital phones from working, or in case mobile networks go down.

Participants completed the Business Resilience Health Check tool online. It is a free online questionnaire, which on completion generates a bespoke action plan: http://www.businessresiliencehealthcheck.co.uk/

Workshop participants also received a copy of Climate East Midlands' Weathering the Storm guide.

All participants rated the workshops as good or excellent.