Angus Council borders Aberdeenshire, Dundee City and Perth and Kinross. It has a population of approximately 116,000. The council’s community learning and development (CLD) team is part of the Vibrant Communities service, which is a fairly new service. The CLD team has been collaborating with the council’s risk management teams to support community resilience in Angus for over six years. A Community Resilience Forum is in place. Their progress is reported to Angus Community Planning Partnership.

The improvement issue

Angus, like many other regions, is susceptible to storms, flooding, and other weather-related disruptions. Angus Council and community planning partners recognised the need to provide community resilience support to help communities better prepare for and respond to challenges posed by storms and power outages. This was in response to the findings from a community-led enquiry.

What Angus Council CLD team did

With support from the Vibrant Communities Community Resilience Officer, a local community group set out to establish a community resilience centre in a remote part of Angus. They co-created a resilience plan in Eassie. This was designed to strengthen community preparedness and self-reliance during emergencies. The community group in Glen Ogilvy / Eassie planned, organised and led with the Community Resilience Officer a series of roadshows around Angus to share best practice, to support other community groups to look after their own residents and raise awareness of the importance of community resilience in Angus. This led to the establishment Angus Community Resilience Forum (CRF) which brought together all individuals and groups that were focusing on community resilience in their localities to help support other community organisations in developing their own resilience plans.

Through the ongoing development and support to others by community resilience groups, the approach used has become a valuable resource for helping communities become more resilient. The CRF is an important support mechanism during extreme weather conditions and power outages. Community development staff continue to work with community organisations to help build capacity in other communities, and to influence and inspire further community resilience work. As a result, other communities are developing their own resilience plans and writing successful funding bids. The CRF run activities, including Floodmobile roadshows, to provide advice and information should a flood occur. They provide demonstrations on the use of defibrillators and allow participants to practice. They also provide training in first aid. During recent floods, this type of support led to the appropriate deployment of public and local resources to local areas and families that needed it the most. This helped to alleviate the pressure on emergency services to respond to the worst affected areas.

The CRF identified a free messaging application that they could use to message large groups. This enables the swift direction of support to where it is needed the most. During the most recent storms in 2024, all the work and experience of the resilience groups over the past six years resulted in several key achievements:

• Resources were quickly identified, with community groups distributing small generators and sandbags to vulnerable neighbours. Resilience halls were opened, and communities had radios and communication systems in place to reach residents.
• Effective communication allowed officers to swiftly identify issues. They used community social media pages, contacts, and Angus Council social media feeds to share information rapidly.
• Community resilience plans contained all necessary contacts, from emergency services to reporting on power outages. Some communities also learned how to monitor and report dangerously high-water levels.
• Communities are aware through the communications of when emergency services are overwhelmed in particular areas and have been able to ‘fend for themselves’.
• A successful funding bid enabled the commissioning of a flood resilience champion, with roadshows held in four Angus locations. In partnership with the Scottish Flood Forum, these events provided residents with flood prevention information and insurance advice.
• Multi-disciplinary drop-ins were set up, with a people focused approach to ensure residents impacted by flooding had all the necessary support required.
• Working with CLD partners, volunteers were deployed to conduct welfare checks throughout the rural areas of Angus.

What the sustained impact has been

Over the last six years, the CRF developed initiatives to build community capacity to ensure that communities can support one another during a crisis. This is helping to reduce the strain on emergency services and enhance overall resilience across the region. There is an increased number of community resilience plans, which are informed by local knowledge and experience, and co-produced by council services and local representatives. As a result, communities have increasing ownership of the actions within the plans. Volunteer run resilience centres provide a vital service to communities who are impacted by extreme weather conditions. There is an increased use of communication tools, which has helped to strengthen the way in which communities across Angus respond to emergencies.

The sustained impact of the community resilience practices in Angus is demonstrated through how self-resilient communities are to prepare and respond to emergencies. This helps local residents mitigate against the impacts of flooding. There is increased knowledge around the needs within local communities, which is strengthening their resilience. This helps to direct multi-disciplinary interventions to areas most in need. For example, access to food, replacement household goods and insurance advice, after storm events.

Due to the success of community resilience in Angus, national organisations are now learning from and sharing this successful approach across other areas of Scotland.