NO DECISION has yet been made on whether to show videos offering advice on what to do in case of a chemical attack to primary school children.

But the town's emergency planning officer Sam Weller has reassured parents that the video is not about to scare children and has only been ordered as a precaution.

The seven-minute video Go In, Stay In, Tune In has been available for three years and was not produced or ordered by the council because of the ongoing war in Iraq.

Mr Weller, who served with Wiltshire Police for 32 years, states that the video is just a small part of the extensive planning and preparation made in case of any major incident.

And while discussions about what to do with the video are ongoing with Swindon's Local Education Authority, Mr Weller is busy with other issues.

His role is to ensure the best provision is in place for any major incident that hits the town.

And it isn't just major disasters such as train crashes that fall under his remit.

He has been kept busy in recent years dealing with the fuel strike that almost brought the country to a standstill in the summer of 2000 and the foot and mouth outbreak of 2001.

He said: "Even the definition of a major incident is complicated but essentially it involves either large numbers of casualties or enquiries which stretch the emergency services beyond what they could normally cope with.

"I meet with members of the Major Incident Co-ordinating Group (MICG), which is chaired by the Assistant Chief Constable of Wiltshire, regularly.

"Members of MICG include people from the emergency services, the Swindon and Marlborough Primary Care Trust and the military, and we all know what each other's roles and responsibilities will be."

Mr Weller points out that threat assessment in Swindon is currently low, however the town cannot afford to drop its guard.

The council's emergency planning department gets its information from Central Government, the Home Office, security services and the police.

If there is a major incident members of the MICG will be convened quickly.

He says there are two parts to responding to a major incident, the pre-incident planning and the response.

In the planning side, the first job is to assess what might present a risk.

In Swindon that would be the fact we are the major road and rail route to Bristol and the South West, with nearby RAF Lyneham also a possible target.

Once the risks are assessed Mr Weller must work out how to prevent the situation getting worse, and prepare for what may happen.

This means that during foot and mouth plans were in place to stop animals moving to control the spread of the disease.

Once an incident starts, the three points of the next phase all come into play: the response, recovery and restoration.

The council has an important role to play in all post incident three areas, especially recovery and restoration.

In the case of a major disaster recovery could include dealing with thousands of media calls and setting up call centres for distressed relatives. Restoration means keeping everything running, because council services will still be needed no matter what has happened.

Mr Weller underlines: "Our job is to plan for whatever could happen and not to scare people. There is a heightened awareness at the moment but we do not want to be alarmist.

"Some things you just can't expect but we will continue to have the best possible plans in place."