Partial reopening
28th April 2020

ALUK has begun a partial reopening of its Chepstow manufacturing plant, ready to meet demand from customers striving to fulfil commercial contracts.

Managing director Russell Yates, having created and implemented the company’s new Safe Working policy said:

“Much of the industry is starting to recognise that, until there is an effective treatment for the virus or even a vaccine, we have to identify safe routes back to work which are in line with the government’s restrictions. According to government officials speaking at the daily briefings, these are likely to be with us in some form for quite some time yet, and possibly until the end of the year.

“Public Health England has however already confirmed that construction sites can continue to operate with adequate PPE and strict social distancing and, while only essential maintenance work is currently allowed in people’s homes, it is possible that we will see some relaxation of those rules in the coming weeks when the current three week lockdown is reviewed again.

“For us, and I think for many of our customers, we are looking now at a safe and phased return for our staff which may be costly in the short term, but will allow the business to adapt and test the new safe working procedures as we ramp up production in line with the future demand.

“For us, a phased return is a way to manage and service this change in the best way possible and I think fabricators who can also adapt to that will be the ones that succeed quicker.”