Since the launch of the ECHs scheme in  the summer of 2023 the resilience footprint of Wiltshire has been greatly changed. There are communities across Wiltshire that now meet on a regular basis and come together to ensure they can help and support their communities in incidents. 

It’s been a long journey for many and as we say, it’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon to make sure that the concept is embedded in the communities psyche and people really do know where to go in an incident where they may get information or need support. 

Many communities have run table top exercises or physical exercises to test their own emergency/flood plan and their ECHs. These exercises can be in the form of a simple discussion or they can be an exercise to set the ECHs up and have it running with a scenario such as flooding for example.   

The dashboard provides a geographic overview of Rest Centres and ECHs across Wiltshire and Swindon. Something that was only in place informally pre 2023 and very much still there in place since Covid-19. It gives our emergency partners location of where they know communities will meet and come together. 

There are now a total of 33 Rest Centres and 98 Emergency Contact Hubs, these include 19 Rest Centres and 83 ECHs in Wiltshire, and 14 Rest Centres and 18 ECHs in Swindon. 

There are many more ECHs that are coming on-line; as they complete their contact details they can be added to this map. 

Later this year Wiltshire and Swindon Prepared are planning to repeat enagement sessions similar to those we have held in previous years. These on-line sessions will be run at times that hopefully work for you as an Emergency Contact Hub. We will be asking communities to share any insight they have, good practice or issues that they have over-come for others to glean insight from.