How frontline operational council staff are working with social distancing
05 May 2020
Frontline operational staff at Aberdeen City Council today showed how they are social distancing while carrying out essential work.
The staff, which includes bin collection teams, building repair trades, roads staff, grave-diggers, and mechanics, have had their normal work practices and patterns changed to ensure they are adhering to social distancing guidance, and not working in large groups.
Some services such as the building repair trades and roads staff have been split into smaller crews as part of the effort to reduce social contact and help prevent the virus from spreading.
Bin collector teams working on one of the city’s routes have lightened their (waste) load by making a short video in a waste lorry cab to The Police’s Don’t Stand So Close To Me, showing how they are working with social distancing. The video is being shown on the City Council’s social media and is also available at https://youtu.be/Po0gMfaZjBQ.
For bin collections, instead of the normal practice of a driver and two crew for loading bin contents into the back of the bin lorry, only one crew member will travel with the driver in the cab and in some cases a second crew member will follow in a separate van to assist.
Aberdeen City Council operational delivery convener Councillor John Wheeler said: “Our front-line operations staff work hard all year round and have had to change their way of working quite considerably to ensure essential services are carried out.
“Our staff have really stepped up in the past few weeks, adopting different ways of working and they deserve a lot praise for work that often goes unnoticed and is taken for granted.
“We’d like to praise how they have adapted during this difficult time for everybody and particularly for keeping a sense of humour while adapting so quickly to the changes.”
Additional information about how Aberdeen City Council services are affected during coronavirus is available from http://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/covid19.