CLACKS COUNCIL will be looking to test its response to any potential failure of utilities, in the wake of the recent outage in Falkirk.

Local authority officers revealed at last Thursday's, December 5, Audit Committee meeting that senior managers are looking at possible scenarios after 8,000 homes were left without gas two weeks ago.

They said there were some "uncanny" similarities between the recent incident and an outage in the Wee County seven years ago.

In 2012, around 3,500 Clacks homes were left with no gas after damage to a Fishcross mains pipe led to a major leak.

Supplies were disconnected around Dollar, Tillicoultry and Fishcross at the time with several schools evacuated and partnering organisations working together to keep vulnerable people protected.

The issue was brought up in the Kilncraigs chamber last week by Councillor and Provost Tina Murphy as elected members debated an updated Corporate Risk Log.

Failure of public utility supply remains a relatively high risk in the log both when looking at likelihood and impact.

The log said: "Risk remains high due to infrastructure and power interdependencies, particularly outage recovery time (now believed to be minimum seven days)."

Cllr Murphy quizzed officers whether plans have been revised and lessens learned in the wake of the recent Falkirk incident.

She also discussed media reports that highlighted that not only were many homes left with no gas, around Stenhousemuir 200 homes received a second blow with electricity failures, which rendered electric heaters and cookers useless in freeing temperatures.

The additional issue was caused by a fault in a sub-station and a temporary generator had to be installed to restore supply.

Naturally, there was an increase in electricity use in the area and Scottish Power appealed to residents to be mindful about the number of devices being used, asking householders to only heat rooms they are in.

Those who did have electricity saw an increase in spending as well, leading to worries for those who could not dig deeper into their pockets.

While electricity supplies never failed in Clackmannanshire during the gas outage seven years ago, there were many similarities in the two incidents as well as the response, the Kilncraigs chamber heard.

Officers added they are looking to train all senior managers and test how the local authority would currently respond should something similar happen.

The council is also seeking to put an emphasis on building community resilience to deal with all sorts of major emergencies, working with various groups.

These include the Menstrie Community Resilience Group, which sprung into action during a flood in July, or the Tillicoultry, Devonside and Colasnaughton (TIDECO) Flood Group which worked hard after torrential rains in August.

Ultimately, the local authority and the groups also work closely with emergency services, Sepa, the Scottish Flood Forum and suppliers in responding to incidents.