EXPLOSIONS

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EXPLOSIONS! David Martin July 2008
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Issues to be covered

• What happened?
• Immediate activity
• Financial issues
• Council Tax and Business Rates
• Planning/regeneration implications
• Long term prognosis

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What happened?

• Explosion at Buncefield Oil Depot on Sunday 11
  December 2005 at 6.02am
• The Depot controlled the major fuel supply to
  Heathrow Airport
• 177 million litres of fuel could be stored on
  site
• Located between the Maylands Industrial Estate
  and the M1 at Hemel Hempstead
• Described as the largest peacetime fire in Europe
  since World War 2

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What caused it?

• Health Safety Executive Investigation
• Cause
• Pipeline refilling tanks
• Tanks filled
• Computer capacity cut off failed
• Tank valve failed
• Overflow
• Tank rain strip added air
• Vapour cloud over a large area
• Stray spark

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Immediate activity

• Safeguard people property
• Emergency related tasks
• Community involvement
• Financial impact
• Housing (accommodation / repairs)
• Extraordinary expenditure
• Council Tax
• Business Rates

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Financial data

• Revenues Benefits data is essential
• Good record keeping
• Ledger coding
• all incident expenditure must be easy to identify
• Photographic evidence
• Business Rates
• Insurance claims
• Audit opinion - clear audit trails must be kept

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Business Rates

• Fast action
• Potential for bad publicity
• Financial impact on NNDR Pool
• Rating List decimation
• Audit
• LABGI

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Council Tax discounts

• Good idea?
• Funding issues
• 100 to billing authority
• Potentially expensive if a district council
• Recent Govt minister comment supports discounts,
  but does not appear to fund them
• Speed
• Urgent business provisions
• Suspend call in
• Will members support it?
• Publicity

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Council Tax discounts

• Amount 100 reduction from 11 Dec 2005 until 31
  Jan 2006 approx 170.32 per Band D
• Criteria
• Properties within designated roads
• Properties evacuated
• Properties that experienced major damage
• Application required for non-designated roads
• Major damage
• Damage to structure of building, fabric of roof /
  Multiple external doors and/or windows
• Tried to borrow themes from Class A

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Council Tax discounts

• Time limits
• All applications had to be received so that the
  Council could action them prior to 31 March 2006.
  Needed to have a specified time.
• Lots of trouble with late return of forms
• No extensions
• Delegated authority no appeals
• Cost
• 85,000 Dacorum - 50,000
• Herts County Council contributed 35,000 under
  their wellbeing powers
• Did it work?

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Financial issues

• Initial spend
• Emergency repairs
• Materials required at no notice (eg. build a
  road)
• 600k of spend in one week
• Staff overtime
• Rest centres
• Emergency control open for 6 days
• Building Control
• Insurance issues
• Other responders
• Fire Rescue Service
• County - roads
• Police

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Bellwin

• Bellwin scheme
• What is covered?
• Not insurable risks
• Local authority threshold
• 32k for DBC
• 2.2m for County
• Cost to DBC - 312k (105k HRA 207k GF)
• Cost to HCC - 2.2 million
• Litigation / Group claims
• Who should pay?
• What about medium term costs?

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Ongoing financial issues

• Group litigation by businesses and homeowners
• A lot of small claims have been settled
• Insurance payments received
• Ongoing court process
• long period to carry risk - approx 260k at
  present
• Health Safety Executive
• Consultation on exclusion zones affecting
  planning policy
• Potential planning blight / economic ability of
  the area
• Rateable value impact (up and down)
• Potential downbanding of Council Tax properties
  in area?
• LABGI - no year 2 payment
• Hardship Relief
• very expensive is it hardship?

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Planning regeneration

• Depot
• Numerous planning applications
• Secretary of State would not call in
• Legal agreements with consent
• Potential for planning inquiry costs
• Perimeter development dependent upon the HSE
  process
• Regeneration
• extensive Council involvement in encouraging
  businesses to develop the estate
• Maylands is a good place to do business
• The location is good and there are good transport
  links
• Strong desire to regenerate