London Resilience Newsletter - April 2025
Welcome to the April 2025 edition of the London Resilience Newsletter. This monthly newsletter provides updates, support and advice on building resilience in your communities from London Resilience and our partners.
The world’s attention has been on Spain and Portugal this week, in the wake of a major power outage across the two countries. You can find information from UK Power Networks on work in the UK to prepare. In 2023, a national power outage exercise took place in which London Resilience and many of our partners were involved.
How can you prepare your community better for risks like power outage? In April we launched the London Community Resilience Toolkit, with over 200 people at our launch event. The Toolkit is free to use, and later this year there will be training and further support.
We also launched the London Business Networks for Resilience project, in collaboration with Resilience First. Business networks are encouraged to join the new network and build their connections, skills and knowledge.
Find out further information and updates below.
Register as a Cool Space and help London be ready for the summer
This summer, we invite you to register a Cool Space with us to help us support Londoners cope in hot weather.
If your organisation runs a venue that offers free seating, free drinking water and a temperature lower than outdoors when it’s hot, please fill in our Cool Space registration form. We will review the information and add your venue to our Cool Spaces map designed to help communities better understand heat health risks and take action.
Here is the Heat-Health Alert Action Card for communities to better understand what your group or organisation can do in case of hot weather. Please also consider signing up to the new Heat Health Alerts from the Met Office, now based on the impacts we expect on health services and communities when the weather is hot.
Join the Community Summer Preparedness Webinar
The London Communities Emergencies Partnership (LCEP) will be holding a summer briefing on summer risks and response, including hot weather and wildfires, where you can better understand how partners are preparing and what you can expect and contribute in a response.
As London faces increasing summer risks — from extreme heat and wildfires to seasonal health risks and localised flooding — this webinar brings together key voices from statutory agencies and community organisations across the capital. Together, we'll explore how to be better prepared and build proactive, inclusive, and resilient responses that prioritise our most vulnerable residents.
You will have the opportunity to hear from expert speakers from statutory and community-led organisations such as the Met Office, NHS, GLA, local authorities, and Voluntary, Community, Faith and Belief (VCFB) organisations.
Topics will include:
- Climate trends and heat-health alerts
- Public health messaging and voluntary sector response
- Fire safety and wildfire preparedness
- Community-led cool spaces and safe shelter planning
- Flood risk awareness and anticipatory action
- Utility support and the Priority Services Register
Summer 2025 - Preparedness Webinar – Online
Date: Tuesday, 10 June 2025
Time: 10:00 – 11:30 AM
Get Vaccinated
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) is urging Hajj and Umrah pilgrims to get the meningitis vaccination.
Following the UKHSA’s confirmation of five cases of MenW disease between February and March 2025, in people who had recently returned from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, or in their close contacts in England and Wales. Those travelling to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) must present a valid MenACWY vaccination certificate before arrival.
Read the LCEP Impact Report
In its second full year of operation, London Communities Emergencies Partnership (LCEP) has had a busy year.
LCEP has played a vital role in preparedness planning for summer and winter hazards, providing rapid coordination in response to racist and Islamophobic riots in August and responding to emergencies such as the Spectrum building fire in Dagenham.
Read The Young Foundation’s ‘Community Not Catastrophe’ Report
The range of threats, risks and predictable crises facing the UK is growing, rapidly. This new report from The Young Foundation seeks to build greater awareness and understanding of the vital role of social infrastructure, social capital, voluntary capacity, and trusted information-sharing in crisis response and recovery.
Training, Funding and Opportunities
Cabinet Office launches UK Resilience Academy
Aimed at levelling up the UK’s resilience, the Academy is set to to train more than 4,000 public and private sector workers in crisis skills and expertise every year, strengthening resilience across the UK.
Apply for the Shared Endeavour Fund
The Fund provides grants for projects that strengthen communities against extremism, build resilience against radicalisation and promote positive action against hate.
Apply for the Asda Foundation Local Community Spaces Fund
To be eligible to apply for this fund, your community space must be an accessible place where members of the community can interact, seek support and access a variety of services and activities.
Download the London Community Resilience Toolkit
The London Community Resilience Toolkit has been designed to help London’s communities get started on their community resilience journey.
The toolkit offers practical information and guidance to help communities better prepare for and respond to future challenges and emergencies. Training workshops and support for the toolkit will be announced soon.
Get in touch
If you have a story you want to share, or you just want to connect, we would love to hear from you. Please email us on CityResilience@london.gov.uk
You can find our latest updates and information through our social media channels. We have both an X account X account to @LDN_Resilience and BlueSky, @ldnresilience.bsky.social, which you can find here.
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