South Glamorgan RAYNET covers the City and County of Cardiff the Capital of Wales, the County Borough of Vale of Glamorgan to the west of the capital. The area covers from approaching Newport to the East, Bridgend to the West, the Severn Estuary coastline in the South and up to around Caerphilly in the North. We naturally also work closely with our neighbouring groups.

Cardiff County is an interesting geographical area, a capital city surrounded by rural countryside, bordered by a major estuary in the south and mountains and valleys to the north. Of course most RAYNET groups will have certain identified potential sources of major incidents which may require the user services call upon RAYNET's skills. However, we have an interesting mix. We are one of several groups on the Severn estuary coastline. Shipping visits the ports of Bristol, Cardiff and Barry, Port Talbot and Swansea. There is potential therefore for a maritime incident, perhaps chemical/oil spillage. Being by the estuary we also naturally have several main rivers flowing from the valleys. Severe weather often causes the Environment Agency to declare flood alerts.

Cardiff International Airport and adjacent RAF St Athan airbase also add to major incident risk. Cardiff International Airport has considerable traffic with scheduled flights to destinations around europe and during the summer many charter flights. The British Airways maintenance centre is also based at Cardiff International Airport. RAF St Athan base is adjacent and hence airspace is busy and mixed.

Just over the estuary is Bristol Airport, also quite busy. The paths of two major air routes ( Golf 1 + Alpha 25) cross above our area. Basically it is a busy area for air traffic and hence the potential for an air related incident is raised.

We also have the capital city of Wales - Cardiff. Being a capital city there are many large public entertainment venues including the "Millenium Stadium" and "Cardiff International Arena", large scale events are frequent and normally pass off with no problems, there is also the St David's Shopping centre which has had up to one million people pass through in a single day over busy periods, so any potential incident could involve the evacuation of many thousands of people, our team have been involved with EVAC, a Cardiff County Council initiative to assist in such a situation should it arise. Contrastingly our area also covers the County of the Vale Of Glamorgan with very rural areas. Severe weather can and does cause problems in these areas with floods and snow blocking access or high winds leading to power failures. There are also several large chemical plants within our area, notably around Barry. These also pose a potential major incident hazard.

Finally, some major transport routes cross our area. We have the M4 motorway crossing East-West and the London-Fishguard mainline railway. Like all groups we work closely with our neighbours in Mid, South & West Wales and South-West England.