Ely Area Resilient Community Group

None of us wants to live in trying times: power cuts are a nuisance; shortages are frustrating (like the saga of diesel and toilet paper during Covid); when flooding hits it can be life-changing for those on the rough end of it; widespread wildfires are uncommon in The Fens although Holme fen[1] was troublesome in 2026; fortunately food shortages are a memory largely relegated to WW2. Most of us will get through life without being greatly troubled by events beyond individual control. But as storms have shown in the UK, and significant wide power cuts in Portugal and Spain[2], it's not something that can be totally ignored. People who take an interest in these things know that, with a bit of preparation, individuals and communities alike can weather the effects better by thinking ahead. Central government is now warning us individually to be prepared.[3]

The Ely Area Resilient Community Group - ElyARC - is a group of volunteers formed in January 2026 with an interest in helping make our local communities more resilient in the face of risks, whatever they might be. We focus on achievable goals to mitigate practical short term risk such as floods, power outages, another pandemic or similar exigencies such as those outlined in the Government's National Risk Register[4].

Our intent is to draw upon practical experience and wisdom from similar groups elsewhere in the UK or wider afield and to provide guidance, encouragement and advocacy to other groups and statutory bodies alike who can help in practical terms when our communities have a crisis or emergency. Our focus on practical things that can be done, we have no intention of being only a talking shop, nor of addressing nebulous future risks that may or may not eventually turn into right-now risks.

In broad terms we see our remit as helping everyone to prepare and plan; this is likely to be through encouraging other individual, social, voluntary and statutory bodies to take practical steps to increase their own resilience and thus increase the overall resilience of our community. We don't think it's practical to have a stand-alone 'emergency' group - that will never be enough when the situation calls for hundreds of helping hands and well-planned resources to be deployed. Instead, by showing how to do it, we want to help everyone be better prepared.

We are currently developing guidance for families and individuals on the basis that to be able to help in an emergency, you mustn't yourself be worried about your own or your family's situation: to be part of the solution, you mustn't be part of the problem. After that, we'll produce further practical guides for the various existing groups we find as we identify them and provide guides and encouragement to be prepared. We know of other similar initiatives in the country and plan to reach out to them, share the best of what we find and try to be a beacon of how to do it for others too. As just two examples, we already have good links with the St Ives Flood Action Group and Cambridgeshire Raynet who provide emergency communications - some of our members also actively liaise with the statutory Cambridge and Peterborough Local Resilence Forum.

If this is something that intrigues you, please send email to info @ elyarc.resiliencyforum.org (without the spaces). We communicate through a mix of whatsapp, email and in-person meetings - the latter so far being in Ely's Piccolo Lounge when it's not too busy!

Local Resilience Resources

Not for a moment claimed to be complete, these lists are being added to as we find relevant resources

Background Reading

Food for thought and background information for those who want to brief themselves more widely

  • Living Without Electricity large (32 page pdf) report from Royal Academy of Engineering into 24 hours without electricity in Lancaster, courtesy of Storm Desmond in 2015[5]
  • British Red Cross guide: "Our report, Ready for Anything, explores what people need and want before, during and after an emergency[6]"
  • What happens if the internet goes down? well-researched piece of journalism by The BBC on the big picture issues around national power failure and its impacts.[7]

References

  1. ^ BBC article on 2026 Holme Fen fire
  2. ^ BBC article on 2025 Iberian power outage
  3. ^ UK Government 'Be Ready' campaign
  4. ^ UK National Risk Register 2025
  5. ^ Royal Academy of Engineering report into 24 hours without electricity in Lancaster, 2015
  6. ^ British Red Cross 'Ready for Anything' report
  7. ^ Wide ranging BBC article on the effects of national power outage