Weston announced its return to work within hours of the prime minister’s 10th May address to the nation, in which he said construction workers should be ‘actively encouraged’ to get back on site.
Weston Homes has 7,000 new homes under construction and in the planning pipeline – £3bn-worth of business.
It said that it would be complying with the Construction Leadership Council’s site operating procedures, with enhanced cleaning regimes, bespoke wash stations, two-metre social distancing and one-way pedestrian traffic routes on all sites.
For internal fit-out work, individual apartments and houses will be limited to two people at any time, with operatives working in isolation in one selected room. There will also be staggered start, finish and break times and a focus on site staff bringing their own food into work and eating in isolation at their allocated work station rather than the traditional canteen-based system.
Chairman Bob Weston said: “We are now planning a safe and managed start back to site on our developments. We have reviewed every aspect of our site activities and implemented strict procedures in order to fully comply with the restrictions imposed by social distancing and health safeguarding requirements. We are confident that we have a robust and comprehensive set of guidelines which mean that we can operate our construction sites safely and comply with strict social distancing requirements.”
As previously reported, Barratt Developments, Britain's largest housebuilder, also begins reopening some of its sites today. Vistry, Persimmon, Taylor Wimpey have also begun re-opening sites in the past week or two.
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