Community Emergency Hubs

The Cumbrian Councils are trying out the idea of communities having their own emergency hubs.

A community emergency hub is a safe place for communities in an emergency. People can come together and offer each other support in an incident or emergency.

Community members can use a hub to:

respond to challenges as a community
improve communication with responding agencies
help local recovery

Communities know what their local issues might be and are often best placed to respond to them. Some communities prone to challenges may already have a Community Emergency Plan and a safe place. If so, they can add more safe places as hubs.

Why you should consider setting up a hub

Hubs are ideal as a safe space for:

all community members to use, where they can respond to and recover from an incident
coordinating local resources, share information and retain oversight of the incident
communicating with responding agencies

Building suitable for Community Emergency Hubs

Any community building can be a hub, providing its safe and accessible during an incident.

It’s good for the building to have access to:

a backup power supply or generator
heating
toilets
a kitchen

Free hub resource kit

To help you get started with your hub, the Cumbrian Councils can give you a kit of resources in an A3 ziplock wallet.

Before you get a kit, you should check:

if anyone else in your community has got one – you can ask your local Parish Councillor
where to store the kit, so it is always accessible and available during an emergency