At 10:50 this morning our Team Leader Garry Rhodes MBE was contacted directly by NWAS (Manchester) requesting the team be put on standby due to the likelihood of freezing rain and icy conditions underfoot which was already affecting Cumbria and Lancashire, ‘descending’ into the Greater Manchester area.

At 10:53 a full team ‘Home only/immediate standby’ message was paged out, with a number of team members declaring their availability, should the team be required.

With a large number of slips and falls being handled by NWAS (Cumbria and Lancashire) their resources were under strain, leading to some NWAS (Manchester) resources being called to assist.

Throughout the rest of the morning and early afternoon our Team Leader was in constant direct liaison with NWAS (Manchester) Control, and also in contact with the Team Leaders of Oldham MRT and Rossendale and Pendle MRT.

This period of standby is not recorded within our ‘Incident Listings,’ and is recorded here for information purposes only, it did however involve our Team Leader in a large time commitment co-ordinating the team response.

This standby ended with the team being called out (see incident 19/2012)