To avoid the threat of major disaster, head to Stoke-on-Trent

Stoke-on-Trent has become the first city in the UK to be classified as “disaster resilient” by the United Nations.

Council chiefs decided to apply for special status under the UN’s International Strategy for Disaster Resilience (UNISDR) - in an extraordinary move, it was successful.

Some 2,000 cities worldwide have been awarded disaster-resilient status by the UNISDR – many of them in areas prone to flooding, tornadoes, earthquakes and volcanoes.

Resilience is central to our aim of making Stoke-on-Trent a great place to live and our resilience action plan enables us to work more effectively across traditional service boundaries to help foster greater resilience in our communities.

We want to do more proactive work to minimise the risk posed by factors such as disease, climate change and winter weather.

• Stoke city council leader Mohammed Pervez

To achieve this status, cities are assessed on 85 criteria including emergency response, infrastructure, environmental impact and scenario planning. Cities that meet about 50 per cent of the criteria can be successful.

Stoke city council said its resilience was less about preparing for an unexpected event such as an earthquake or nuclear disaster and more about dealing with things like cold weather and flooding.

More: These are the 10 countries most at threat from climate change