Covid-19 Response

Covid-19 Response

Covid-19 has had major effects on the removal industry worldwide. Following the Prime Minister’s broadcast on the 23rd March we endeavoured to complete work that had been started and by the end of March almost all our operative staff were placed on furlough. As the course of the pandemic has progressed this of course has changed and all our offices are now open but in the circumstances are closed to all visitors except by appointment or arrangement.

We wrote a policy on 10th March for the benefit of customers which outlined a plan to deal with a much higher rate of sickness amongst our operative team than we were used to. Within 2 weeks, the policy was outdated as the government instructed people to stay at home and almost immediately we, and most other responsible moving companies, ceased operations until the government advice changed.

On 10th May, the Prime Minister announced a partial lifting of the lockdown and on 12th May the Secretary of State for Housing introduced measures to allow the housing market to resume activity. On 13th May, more detailed government advice was issued which warned that it may become necessary to pause all house moves for a short period of time to manage the spread of coronavirus.

It went on to offer the following advice to consumers:

“Moving your belongings – removal firms are able to operate, although they may need to adjust usual procedures in order to ensure moves happen as safely as possible.
We encourage you to contact removal firms as early as possible in advance of your move.

You and your household should also try and do as much of the packing yourself as possible. However, where this is not possible, you should speak to your removal firms in advance. We ask that, where possible, you clean your belongings, with standard domestic cleaning products before they are handled by others, including removal firms.
Whilst the removers are in your home, you should ensure any internal doors are open and seek to minimise your contact with the crew, maintaining a distance of at least 2 metres where possible.

All parties should wash their hands and avoid touching surfaces where possible to reduce the risk of transmitting the coronavirus. You should not provide refreshments but you should ensure they have access to hand washing facilities, using separate towels or paper towels if possible, which should be washed or disposed of safely afterwards.”

Since the issue of the advice, we have carried out the necessary risk assessments and instituted new safe systems of work for our staff. These are available on our website. Before arriving at your home, our staff will have sanitised the vehicle and its equipment. They will have been issued with the appropriate PPE equipment. During the removal process, we ask the following:

• That before the arrival of our crew you sanitise all touch points that the staff may have to deal with like kitchen cupboard doors and drawers and other items that staff may have to open to pack plus areas like banister rails, bathroom taps, etc.
• That you open all doors to internal rooms and prop them open.
• That you maintain 2 metre social distancing from the crew.
• That only one representative of the household is on site.
• That there are no children or loose animals and that you provide handwashing facilities for staff. 0(They will bring their own paper towels.)
• That you do not offer refreshments to the crew, they will bring their own.
• That you have your own pen to complete documentation.
• We ask that similar precautions are taken on arrival at your new home before the crew enter.

We hope that following the government guidance and the measures that we have put in place will help in the national effort to suppress the disease and, in doing so, keep you and our staff healthy. In these uncertain times, we must make it clear that if we are unable to carry out a move due to a further lockdown, or because of very high sickness or isolation rate amongst our staff, then we cannot accept any cost that may arise from that failure by us. We will continue to restrict the proportion of staff that we commit to customers to build in some spare capacity so that, hopefully, we can continue to cover all the commitments we have made to customers. We also want to ensure that moves are only carried out by our own skilled, trained employees.

Similarly, we recognise that our customers may not be able to move through no fault of their own and may have to postpone a move at short notice. We have, therefore, decided that for the period of the emergency, we will amend Clause 7, covering postponement charges, within 10 days of the moving date to be 20% of the removal charge only.

We are continuing to carry out surveys for forthcoming removals by video and physical appointment. If you would like us to arrange one of these with you please contact us.

Please see the following links for the latest advice issued by the UK and Scottish Governments in relation to home moving.

Please find our Covid-19 Risk Assessments here.

If you have any queries then please do not hesitate to contact any of our branches.