During the past few years Cemex’s South Ferriby site has played host to various emergency services as a training ground for a variety of different exercises and events.
In 2020 Humberside Police requested the use of the site for firearms training and once word got around the emergency services community, South Ferriby’s Site Co-ordinator, Stuart Blackburn, then received a call from the Humberside Regional Marine unit enquiring if they could also use the quarry for various training scenarios.
The site’s terrain is ideal for emergency services to undertake a variety of different training exercises and for Cemex, their presence gives the site an extra security deterrent while they are present.
In May 2023 Humberside Police once again requested the use of the quarry for hosting a regional large scale emergency situation, code named Operation Seabreeze, which involved multiple disciplines and coordination. The teams needed to train for an air disaster and various pieces of luggage and aircraft parts were spread across the area. These were then recovered by underwater dive teams combined with search and rescue dog handlers and a drone combing the woodland areas. This was the first regional training event hosted by Humberside Police of this type, with collaborations with other regional forces, including Humberside Police, Lincolnshire, Cumbria, Met Police and Northamptonshire.
The event was a huge success and well controlled with positive feedback from all Police forces involved. The event was kept as low key as possible to try to avoid too much attention/publicity to the area mainly for the quarry security and safety reasons.
Alex Weeks, Chief Inspector – Firearms & JESIP Tactical Lead, sent the following message to Stuart: “Following the recent success of the Humberside Police National Dive event – Op Seabreeze, I wanted to share my personal thanks to you and your company for the support you have provided to Humberside Police. I know that this support is not simply in respect of this dive event but felt longer term by our regional dive team. As a result of the support from Cemex, our divers have the opportunity to train at depth and with a variety of challenges to ensure they have the best training they can achieve. This clearly allowing us to dive effectively and keep the team safe. I think it is fair to say that the use of the quarry and the event was very much the envy of many of the other regional dive teams and would not have been possible without your continued support. Thank you so much and I look forward to our continued relationship between Cemex and Humberside Police in the future.”
The Cemex team were delighted to assist the emergency services with training for a larger scale emergency situation which involved multiple disciplines and coordination.
Following in South Ferriby’s footsteps, the team at Rugby Cement plant will also be supporting an ‘Open Water Safety’ film on their site. Watch this space for more details.
Images provided by Humberside Police.