North Yorkshire County Council's Ready For Anything is an innovative scheme, funded by the Connected Communities Innovation Fund, whereby volunteers are trained and integrated into the multi-agency emergency response in a co-ordinated way. Within eight months of the launch in December 2018, over 360 volunteers had signed up. Beyond the training sessions, the first deployment was after the severe flash flooding of Richmondshire in August 2019.

It was a sunny afternoon in Northallerton, with people enjoying ice cream in the heat. An officer then received a message from her husband with a video of torrential rain and hail stones which were battering the town of Leyburn 18 miles away. Shortly after, the duty phone started ringing and more information quickly came in from the Fire & Rescue control room. Unbeknownst to us, the northern Yorkshire Dales were being hit by the worst English flash flooding event in recorded history, with 82mm of rain falling in two hours (worse than Boscastle in 2004 which was 75mm of rain).

Due to the rural nature of the Dales, it was very difficult to understand the scale of the devastation and areas hit. The strain on resources for the emergency responders was soon evident and it was decided on the first day of recovery to deploy Ready For Anything. A team of volunteers was requested to help with door-knocking to gather information from residents affected. This is a new scheme where the decision to deploy volunteers is made at a multi-agency level during a Local Resilience Forum recovery teleconference. Other potential roles were discussed such as support in community hubs, management of donations and providing refreshments.

The requests were sent out via text on a geographical basis and volunteers responded straight away. We deployed eight volunteers to Leyburn, Bellerby and Reeth, where they were met by a co-ordinator in each location and briefed on the incident and their required tasks. The volunteers were provided with as much information as possible, including street maps of the areas they were visiting. Volunteers also have branded ID badges and high-visibility tabards. They worked alongside council staff and British Red Cross volunteers, and this was the first time that a co-ordinated approach had been taken to different organisations and groups working together in such a directed way.

On the first day alone, volunteers made contact with over 50 local households and gathered information about the levels of damage and what support was required. This was the first time that many members of the public had seen 'officials' and was therefore a valuable extra resource in personnel for the emergency responders. This first day proved a great opportunity to gain situational awareness, as we found out from locals about other affected areas that we weren’t aware about. In many areas of the Dales, people have the mindset of helping themselves, so in some locations no calls had been made to the emergency services or the council.

The volunteers also adapted to requirements as they changed, and carried out other roles such as delivering food and cleaning supplies from the many donations that were being given on a daily basis.

As with many incidents, one of the big challenges was to co-ordinate community members who spontaneously volunteered to help, as some volunteers were from the local village and some from much further afield. Ready For Anything was an excellent way to channel this enthusiasm by directing it on location, so that it was co-ordinated alongside the organised emergency response.

Having volunteers involved in the emergency response and recovery proved to be of huge benefit. This innovative scheme ensured that public goodwill was channelled in a co-ordinated way, with communities becoming more resilient as a result.