Emergency responders come together to share essential knowledge and capabilities

Emergency responders from across Yorkshire and the Humber came together last week for the first ever Multi-Agency Capabilities Event (MACE) organised by West Yorkshire Resilience Forum.

Held at Wetherby Racecourse, the event showcased the specialist capabilities, equipment and vehicles of approximately 40 different agencies that could be called upon in the event of a Major Incident Response within our region.

Exhibitors included West Yorkshire and Humberside Fire and Rescue Services, West Yorkshire and North Yorkshire Police Forces, the Yorkshire Ambulance Service, the MOD, HM Coastguard, the Environment Agency, utility companies and a number of Mountain Rescue Teams and other voluntary organisations. The Yorkshire Air Ambulance also dropped by.

The event was organised in response to the Manchester Arena Inquiry, which recommended that members of the emergency services should be aware of the specialist capabilities of every other emergency service.

Those attending the event found it useful and informative, with comments including:

“A great opportunity for services to find out about each other’s capabilities and how they work with or alongside each other. A great chance to talk to people who are actually delivering the service…Gave me a much better insight.”

“I thought the event was well organised and professionally handled. It gave me a personal insight to other agency’s involvement at larger incidents.”

West Yorkshire Resilience Forum would like to thank everyone involved – exhibitors and visitors – for making the event such a success.