A team dedicated to helping Largs residents keep safe if the town is hit by an emergency will be launched early next month.

Fifty-eight people who have volunteered to join Largs Community Resilience Team will be officially welcomed at the launch ceremony at St Columba’s Church hall on Sunday 2 November at 3pm.

VIPs and first responders from a range of organisations, including the police, ambulance, fire service, coastguard, RNLI and North Ayrshire Council will also attend the event, which is being hosted by Largs Community Council.

North Ayrshire councillors and representatives from community councils in the surrounding area have also been invited.

The launch will be the culmination of several months of work carried out by a resilience sub-group set up by the community council, who wanted to offer back-up to the emergency services in the event of severe weather or other circumstances which put the community at risk.

Appeals for funding initially produced a total of £3,000 from North Ayrshire Council, Kelburn Windfarm Community Trust and SSE Hunterston Community Fund who each gave £1,000. And just last week, Scottish Resilience announced they would give up to £1,000 to buy specific items of equipment.

The Largs group has been chaired by community council secretary George Douglas, a retired police commander, who led a drive for volunteers by setting up a resilience team stall during the Viking Festival.

Mr Douglas said: “The response was excellent — more than 50 people came forward to volunteer when they saw our stall at the Viking Festival. That, plus the welcome funding we have received, means that we are good to go, with the formal launch on Sunday 2 November.” He said the group had been very impressed by the calibre of volunteers, who included people from the emergency services and health workers. Mr Douglas added that Category 1 Responders had been kept advised of the progress to cement their professional liaison and the intention now was to meet with voluntary groups in Largs.

In addition, the Scottish Government Resilience Division had been kept informed of progress, as had North Ayrshire Council’s Civil Contingencies Officer.

At Thursday’s community council meeting, Mr Douglas briefed members on plans for the launch.

Chairman Douglas Blair thanked him and the sub-group members for their hard work behind the scenes to form the group. He added: “There will be an undoubted benefit to the town if something untoward happens.” Several resilience groups are being set up around Scotland, while the one on Arran was named Resilience Team of the Year following the huge community effort to respond to the snowstorm of March 2013