Happy New Year

Happy New Year to you all. I hope you had a good break over the Christmas period and return to work refreshed.

Many staff were on duty over the holiday period working – either providing our many 24/7 services or working on the flood related problems that have been ongoing since before Christmas. I’d just like to say thank you to everybody who provided such valuable service over the last few weeks – it’s been excellent.

Today I have spent most of the morning with the elections team and the Electoral Commission planning for the 2014 European elections which take place in May. This is a large and complex event with over 300 polling stations, 4 verification venues and a large single count venue. It will involve hundreds of staff in numerous roles so if you would like to be involved in this, please contact the elections team or let me know. I always need a few more volunteers. Elections are always very exciting.

I have just come from the Local Resilience Forum (LRF) which is meeting at least daily at the moment to coordinate the response to the floods throughout Wiltshire. There are reps from all of the different agencies involved (Wiltshire Council, Met Office, Environment Agency, Police, Fire, Ambulance, Highways Agency, Public Health, NHS England, Swindon BC, central government, the power companies, Wessex Water and others) where we understand the current situation and direct the coordinated response as appropriate. This work will go on throughout the weekend. Many thanks to all of those on call.

Speak again soon.

For daily updates, discussion, personal opinion, comment or just to connect or keep in touch you can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/drcarltonbrand

Carlton