Zombie outbreak? We have no specific plan admits Wolverhampton council

The question was put to City of Wolverhampton Council, one of hundreds it receives each year under the powers of the Freedom of Information Act, known as FOI.

The FOI is normally used by members of the public to extract statistics from councils and other public organisations.

But the council’s log of FOI questions it has received in the last few weeks, reveals the query about zombies – and the witty reply that came back.

The original FOI question, posed by an unknown taxpayer, stated: “Given the potential of an outbreak of apocalyptic levels which could result in a catastrophic zombie scenario, and that you as a front facing public service would be at risk.

“I wanted to know if you as an organisation had any strategy or plan in place to prevent (or if unable to do so) at least contain the situation should it arise.”

Responding to the FOI, the council revealed it currently has no ‘specific plans in place’, although they accept ‘the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.’

The council replied by explaining it doesn’t have specific information held in regards to a potential zombie outbreak.

It added: “The City of Wolverhampton concentrates our efforts on planning for risks that are generally accepted as being more likely. With limited resources, we must select priorities and, as such, we use the National Risk Register and the local Community Risk Register to identify risks based on their likelihood and impact.

“Neither of those published registers recognise risks such as faeries, werewolves, vampires or zombies; but that is not to say that our plans are not capable of being adapted to unexpected, black swan type, emergencies.

“The council has a number of risk specific plans that are underpinned by a generic Major Incident Response Plan. This plan allows us to gather the right people, with the right training and tools, to manage the response to a major incident, irrespective of the hazard that caused it.”