Lifeline at night time

The unsung heroes who help to keep you safe at night

L-R: Civic One member David Cain; the Civic One team maintain life buoys around the marina; control centre manager Martin Walker; and closing a flood barrier in the Old Town.

It's late at night and a dog is lying dead after being run over on a busy road.
Elsewhere, the handle has fallen off the front door at an old people's complex – so nobody can get in and out, causing a fire risk.
Across Hull, the security alarm is going off at a primary school and some traffic lights at a busy junction aren't working.
These are typical of the problems which happen every night in Hull, but they're not strictly matters for the police, fire or ambulance services.
So who deals with them? The answer is the council's out-of-hours service, known as the Civic One team.
The team is made up of trained officers, many of whom are ex-police or armed forces, who are experienced in dealing with a wide range of issues.
"We're the human face of the council, often when people need us most," says operations manager Gary Cooper.
"Whether it's closing a road after a car accident, or cleaning up an oil spillage or broken glass, we'll often be the first on the scene, and if we can't fix the problem ourselves we'll call out a person who can.
"If there's a dangerous dog, we'll call out the public protection team or if, say, people ring up about noisy neighbours we can call out the noise pollution team."

Times of need

If you ring the council's main number – 300 300 – between 7pm and 8am during the week, or weekends and bank holidays, you'll get through to Civic One.
And if you live in one of the 28,000 council properties across the city, this can be a lifeline.
In an emergency the team can dispatch council tradesmen, including joiners, plumbers, gas fitter, glazers, bricklayers and even builders.
"We had one elderly lady ring us up on Christmas morning panicking that she couldn't get her oven to work – so she couldn't cook her turkey," says Gary.
"One of the team attended, but it was a problem he couldn't solve, so he ended up sweet-talking her neighbours into letting her borrow their oven."
"We sometimes get calls from elderly or vulnerable people who've lost their keys and are standing in the dark and cold.
"We go round and sit them in the van and keep them warm until the joiner arrives."

Night-time wasters

There are also callers who have difficulty deciding what an 'emergency' is.
Like the woman who rang during the night to report that her toilet handle had snapped off and wouldn't flush, and the man who rang to complain he couldn't get a signal for Channel Five on his TV aerial.
Another caller said a bar on his electric fire wasn't working.
"Minor problems like these are passed to the housing team for action the following day," says Gary.
"You sometimes get people who've been in the pub all night and ring up to have a go about a housing repair that needs doing.
"One person rang to ask if we knew where to get a good take-away pizza.
"But what these callers don't realise is that by wasting our time they might be putting others at risk."

Key to your safety

The Civic One team also holds the keys to more than 400 council buildings across the city, including schools, sports centres, libraries, museums, admin offices and sheltered housing
"If an alarm goes off our computer starts bleeping, and one of the team will go round and investigate," says Gary.
"Sometimes it can be something as simple as a fax coming through at two in the morning which activates the infra red sensor."
The Civic One team also has an important part to play in major emergency incidents such as flooding and fires.
"Using CCTV, we can tell fire crews what colour the smoke is before they even arrive at a fire so they know whether chemicals are present," says Gary.

Setting the standard

The Civic One team is believed to be the only team of its kind of any local authority in the country which combines the roles of CCTV monitoring, emergency planning and 'first responder' out of hours.
"We're setting the standard nationally and that's very gratifying, " says Gary.
"It's public safety we're dealing with so we have to be the very best we can be."