On Friday 26th May Edenbridge Town Council was delighted to award Robert McKillop with a civic medallion in recognition of his long and valuable service to the communications section of Council’s Emergency Planning Committee.
Robert and his wife Julia have been involved in Emergency Planning for over thirty years.
In 1987 they attended Kent County Council’s Emergency Planning “Community Volunteer” Training course over a period of 32 weeks. Before the course finished, Edenbridge was to experience major flooding, followed shortly afterwards by the ‘hurricane’. In both emergencies, they supported Edenbridge Town Council by providing communications with Sevenoaks District Council.
They were active members of Edenbridge Town Council’s Emergency Planning Committee for many years and participated in their annual multi-agency exercises.
Unfortunately, Julia was diagnosed with MS in 2003, but Robert continued to work with the Emergency Planning Committee, in particular by encouraging members to take the Amateur Radio Foundation Licence training course and encouraging others to operate radios confidently.
Robert’s most recent achievement was to design a radio system that provides resilient communications throughout the parish and beyond. Without his expert guidance, the arrangements for dealing with emergencies in the town would be very much less effective.
