Employees at Lafarge Cement’s Westbury distribution site are carrying out an exercise to test their safety skills and disaster readiness next week.

The operation will involve Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service equipment and vehicles arriving to help deal with a simulated blaze and casualties to make the event as realistic as possible.

“Whilst we have a small team here, we run a complex logistics operation,” said distribution manager Simon Gray.

“Whilst we work hard to ensure emergencies never happen, this exercise will give us an opportunity to test out our plans, refresh our first aid training and reinforce best practice for managing such a situation or indeed any other less serious safety incident.

“We want to prevent local people from being concerned and reassure them that this activity is part of a training exercise, it is not for real.”

Fire service station manager Kathy Collis said: “This exercise gives both the Lafarge team and our staff a valuable opportunity to rehearse the best way to manage an emergency of this kind on an industrial site.

“Our skills will be tested on a variety of levels, with challenging rescue areas, injuries and working at height.”