HEREFORD and Worcester Fire and Rescue Service (HWFRS) cashed nearly £100,000 for taking part in a flood exercise in Holland.

We previously reported how the service was taking part in a multi-national exercise simulating the United Kingdom’s response to a repeat of the disastrous floods in 2007.

HWFRS was asked to direct flood rescue operations in Norfolk and Suffolk in November 2007, with the Worcester Flood Command Centre co-ordinating re-sponding flood rescue teams from the fire and rescue service and voluntary agencies.

As a result, HWFRS was asked to play a leading role in the FloodEx exercise which took place at the end of last month.

Although a number of volunteers were given the opportunity to practise their skills during the two-day exercise checked by EU observers, no frontline services were affected and HWFRS did not pick up any costs associated with the event.

Instead, it received 104,000 euros, about £96,000, for co-ordinating the UK’s re-sponse to the exercise.

Chief Fire Officer Paul Hayden said: “This has been a fantastic opportunity to test the improved flood response training and coordination arrangements we have developed in the fire and rescue service since 2007.

“The EU spent in excess of £1.5 million on this exercise to make it both realistic and challenging for all concerned.

“Not only would this scale of exercise been difficult to organise at a local level, but our success in attracting EU funding has enabled us to do so without cost to local council taxpayers. Overall, our involvement working alongside our EU colleagues was a major success.”

Crew manager Ade Mayhew said: “It’s been great to share specialist water rescue skills with colleagues from around the UK and EU.

“The scale of this training exercise was very realistic and we’ve learnt things about our equipment and rescue techniques used by other services that I’m sure will help to save lives if we ever have a repeat of the 2007 floods.”

Mr Hayden said it was good to test the capabilities of all resources and give more experience of such situations to those taking part.