UPDATED council plans for a major disaster have been agreed.

Barrow Council’s executive has agreed its four-year business continuity plan to take its preparations into the next decade.

The plan sets out how the council would respond to a serious town hall emergency between now and 2022.

It warns that severe fires, power outages, cyber attacks, floods and even pandemics, could grind services to a halt, according to the plan.

The concern is that vital services could be delayed such as help for homeless families and the authority’s finances. Council executive director Phil Huck told a meeting that the last plan was drawn-up in 2014 and needed to be updated to guard against new risks.

Mr Huck said: “This is a review of the plan that already exists because we have to plan in the event of a fire or major power outage. This plan sets out in detail our IT arrangements and that we have premises arrangements. It also lists the services we would provide in order of priority that they would be re-established.”

The new plans reveal the council has an unnamed “offsite” location in the event of Barrow Town Hall being put out of action. Mr Huck said the location had to remain secret in the event any attack was “malicious”.