Stockport Council is joining the British Red Cross and Aviva in calling on people across the borough to sign up to a new scheme called community reserve volunteers.

The British Red Cross community reserve volunteer scheme wants local people to work together as a team during major emergencies, such as flooding, fires and power failures.

The volunteers don’t need any specialist skills and will be called in if crisis strikes in their area. It’s quick and easy to sign up online and community reserve volunteers will be contacted by text if there is an emergency in their community they could help with.

They will undertake vital jobs like packing food parcels, blowing up airbeds for rest centres and filling sandbags in times of flooding. They’ll work in small teams led by an experienced Red Cross volunteer who will ensure that the teams are well supported and directed.

The call for people to sign up comes after the British Red Cross experienced one of the busiest years since WWII, assisting 9,300 people in more than 1,500 emergencies across the UK in 2017, including terror attacks in London and Manchester, and the Grenfell Tower fire.

Residents can find out more and sign up to be a British Red Cross community reserve volunteer scheme at www.redcross.org.uk/reserves