'Bomb' evacuation Apology after residents were left in the dark

MORE than 200 people evacuated from their homes in South Bristol last month were left without any official support for more than three hours because no one from any of the emergency services dealing with a suspected bomb incident told the city council’s emergency response team.

- Tristan CORK

The head of the Bristol City Council's team that deals with mass evacuations has apologised to people in Ashton Vale at a public meeting, and said they were “a little behind the curve” because they weren't immediately informed that a 100m evacuation area had been established on the housing estate.

The evacuation was ordered at around 7.50pm on July 22, when the Army’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit arrived at the house in South Liberty Lane, and police evacuated residents in a 100m cordon. Many of the estimated 200 residents of the streets around the house in South Liberty Lane went to friends or relatives nearby, but scores of people with nowhere close by to go to were sent by police to the Ashton Vale Community Centre, just outside the cordon on Risdale Road.

But no police officers were present to liaise with residents, and no one from Bristol City Council's emergency response team arrived at the centre to support those evacuated until just before 11pm. It was only at that point that members of the council’s emergency response team arrived to assess the needs of the people there.

The public meeting heard from people who had been evacuated, who told council and police officers that many were elderly and vulnerable, and required access to medication, or were young families with children with special needs, for whom the evacuation was potentially traumatising.