The real reason behind heavy emergency service response at Westcott near Aylesbury

Emergency service personnel from across the country took part in a major incident training exercise at Westcott Venture Park.

Exercise Banjo was co-ordinated by Bucks Fire & Rescue Service (BFRS) as part of the national Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) programme and involved more than 150 personnel.

The 30-hour scenario, spread over two days on Wednesday and Thursday, March 8 and 9, involved a mid-air collision between two aircraft with the wreckage landing on a school.

Visual props were used to replicate a scene including planes, a car on fire, piles of rubble supplied by Bucks Recycling and smoke from another local company, Concept Engineering. Fifteen actors from the Community First Responders team played the victims.

USAR forms part of the government’s New Dimension programme, which seeks to enhance the capability of the fire and rescue service to respond to a range of major emergencies.

USAR units from Tyne and Wear, West Yorkshire, Merseyside, Lancashire, Lincolnshire, Essex, West Midlands, Norfolk and Leicestershire attended with dogs and handlers trained to detect live human scent and tactical advisors.

They were joined by 10 Hazardous Area Response Team (HART) paramedics using a range of specialist lifesaving equipment and vehicles, and Police Disaster Victim Identification teams from the West Midlands.

They were overseen by assessors from the National Resilience Assurance Team who monitored how the teams interacted and worked together, with their findings reported back to the National Fire Chiefs’ Council.

Aylesbury Fire Station Commander Kevin Mercer, who helped co-ordinate the exercise, said: “These exercises are vital for helping emergency service co-ordination in response to a major incident.

“The national USAR teams are trained and exercise to be ready to respond in the event of a serious incident which requires an enhanced capability outside the normal remit of the fire and rescue services.”

“We are really fortunate to have such a great relationship with Westcott which has evolved since we ran our first exercise, Exercise Phoenix, here in 2020.”

Bucks Fire & Rescue Service also helped co-ordinate a major incident exercise, Project Ariona, at Westcott last year, designed to offer a realistic disaster scenario for medical students at the University of Buckingham.