The groundbreaking work of the Lancashire Resilience Forum’s Telecoms Support Group was highlighted at this year’s Emergency Services Show at the NEC in Birmingham.

Group member Chris Shuttleworth, spoke to delegates from across the UK about the benefits of the LRF’s Emergency Radio Area Link (ERAL) system after being invited to speak by the Emergency Planning Society.

Chris said: “The presentation was called ‘Interoperable Communications equipment equals Interoperable People’ and it gave delegates an understanding of the principals we have adopted to achieve Interoperable Radio Communications across all agencies, volunteers and community groups.

“ERAL has given the Lancashire Resilience Forum a fundamental advantage in its ability to provide a secure, resilient communications platform with interoperability across the agencies for both response and recovery which could prove vital in an emergency scenario.

“I wanted to highlight how the system provides our ‘Community Emergency Support groups’ with resilient communications and power equipment at a time of need and stressed how this supports the ‘Whole of Society Approach’ to response and recovery which supports the ‘UK Government Resilience Action Plan”.

He added: ”As one of the show’s speakers I was joining many like minded professionals all dedicated to making a difference across the emergency services sector and it was a fantastic opportunity to highlight the great work we are doing in Lancashire and share the knowledge and the experience of this innovative LRF project.

“We welcome the engagement and involvement with other LRFs across the country to share our knowledge and experience to replicate these achievements.”