Along with police and ambulance colleagues, firefighters took part in a drill testing their joint response to an incident at Westquay Shopping Centre.
The event kicked off after the venue had closed for the evening, and with all shoppers and members of the public off the premises.
Crews from the nearby St Mary’s Fire Station have tested their operational procedures at the shopping centre several times over the past couple of years.
Using service routes and private corridors, firefighters have worked alongside onsite teams to familiarise themselves with the layout of the building and understand what considerations need to be made if faced with a real incident.
Station Manager Pete McClemont, St Mary’s Fire Station, said:
“We have built a close relationship with Westquay in recent years, which has seen them kindly grant us access to their site to conduct a series of exercises testing our skills in a range of different scenarios.
“Working with our partners, we designed this exercise to challenge our operational teams’ response to a large-scale multi-agency incident at the city’s main shopping venue.
“Members of the public in the vicinity of Westquay at the time, will have witnessed a large number of emergency vehicles arrive, before the practice drill got underway, and I’d like to thank them for their patience and understanding, and for allowing our teams the time and space to respond as if it were real.
“We are really pleased with how the exercise unfolded and the actions responders took to bring the scenario towards a safe resolution. As with all training exercises, we will conduct a debrief with all those involved to recognise successes and identify learning points so that we can ensure we are prepared if faced with a similar situation.”
Emergency calls were made into our Control Room, who played their role in the exercise, deploying resources as they would in a real incident, whilst volunteers supported the exercise, acting as casualties at the scene.
The venue consists of shops, food outlets and more, and is the perfect arena for emergency responders to practice dealing with an incident within a large and complex building, with plenty of stairwells, corridors and walkways.
Councillor Toqeer Kataria, Cabinet Member for Communities, Safety and Leisure at Southampton City Council said:
“As a council, we’re committing to creating a Safer Southampton, so I’d like to thank all of our colleagues and partners who were involved in this training exercise.
“Exercises such as this are vital as they help our emergency services to plan for the worst and develop their contingency plans accordingly.”
