SEDGEMOOR District Council has made plans to cope if its staff are taken hostage or walk out en masse after winning the lottery.

The unlikely scenarios are among those covered in a 45-page draft Business Continuity Plan, which has just been approved by the council’s executive.

The document describes how the authority would react to protect its staff and property and get services back running as quickly as possible in the event of any number of extreme scenarios, also including floods, fires, strikes, a pandemic illness, or a major IT failure.

It explains how if staff walked out after a syndicate lottery win, their pay would be suspended within 24 hours, and if the council’s offices were damaged, buildings including a marquee in Victoria Park and a Portakabin in Colley Lane would be taken over.

It also gives the locations of two “grab bags” and a “battle box” containing essentials for coping with a disaster, such as emergency contacts, floor plans, pens and pencils etc.

The council, which has no statutory obligation to draw up a survival plan, drew up its plan in-house rather than pay for outside consultants.

Business continuity leader Julian Street said: “It takes time and money to draw up a plan you hope you’ll never have to use, but it is important to be prepared.”

The plans, which can be found on the council’s website, originally included private home and mobile numbers of eight senior council staff, but those contact details were hastily removed when the Mercury notified the authority on Friday.

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