A YORK parish council which was hit by the floods of 2000 has produced its own emergency plan.

Rawcliffe Parish Council is to unveil its strategy - the first of its kind in the city - next Monday.

The Rawcliffe Community Emergency Plan follows the floods which affected more than 100 homes in the area in November 2000.

The plan has been devised with the assistance of City of York Council's emergency planning co-ordinator, Barry Kelly.

Parish council clerk Alan Robinson said: "The events of November 2000 demonstrated just how important a role the parish council could play in assisting any response to emergencies in the area.

"Rawcliffe Parish Council, recognising this fact, decided to create an emergency plan which could be instigated by the parish council and, when more appropriate authorities arrive on the scene, can be handed over.

"We have tried to make it a general emergency plan, because whilst the most likely risk is flooding, there is no guarantee that a chemical tanker will not overturn on the ring road or that we won't get another gas main fracture in the road, as we did in January 2000."

Mr Robinson said the plan was designed to integrate with the plans of

other agencies. "But we felt it unwise not to consider what resources are available locally which could be used to support and supplement the work of the other agencies in helping our community."

The document identifies both human and material resources that could be made available to assist in a major incident within the parish.

It also identifies the reasonably-foreseeable risks that may affect the community, and who will be responsible for implementing a parish response.

Mr Kelly said: "The Rawcliffe plan builds on the lessons learnt from other events and sits nicely with other agency plans involved with integrated emergency management."

He said other parish councils in the York area could now follow Rawcliffe Parish Council's example, and its plan would now be incorporated into the city-wide emergency plan.

Updated: 11:08 Saturday, October 19, 2002