Coronavirus (COVID-19): Guidance on essential works 01 April 2020

1 April 2020

News Update Coronavirus (COVID-19): Guidance on essential works Protecting our People

Scottish Roads Partnership and their Operating and Maintenance (O & M) contractor, Amey, are responding to an unprecedented challenge in protecting and supporting our workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic. We’re working round the clock to maintain services whilst keeping the Scottish Roads Partnership family safe.

We are resolutely focused on three key priorities:

• Protecting our employees and the communities we serve
• Continuing to deliver for our clients and maintaining critical services that the country relies on
• Supporting our suppliers and the wider Amey family

We are also responsible for making safe that key workers can continue delivering vital public services across the country by ensuring necessary transport infrastructure is in place so these key workers can travel to work.
Going forward, we will continue to refine how we support everyone in the Scottish Roads Partnership, including our clients, our suppliers, and particularly the thousands of small businesses and social enterprises we work with.
Scottish Roads Partnership are playing their part in keeping essential motorway and trunk road routes open; to support the Health Services, key industries (i.e. food deliveries), the emergency services and those caring for vulnerable people.

We are following the necessary Scottish and UK Government guidelines and regularly updating our Business Continuity Plans with any changes in response, as well as adhering to social distancing guidance, with specific control measures in place on all our schemes.

All Scottish Roads Partnership staff who can work from home are doing so, and specially designed rosters are being used for frontline employees; to limit social contact and the number of people in our depots. We want to keep our people protected, especially those delivering these essential frontline services, and to ensure their work environment is as safe as possible.

Maintaining Essential Services
Any ongoing non-essential operations on our network are being safely stood down until the current restrictions are lifted. There will be ongoing monitoring activity to ensure that any site works, which are suspended are maintained in a safe condition during the current situation.

We understand how difficult these times are for everyone, and we thank all road users for their patience and support while essential works are being undertaken.

Scottish Roads Partnership are continuing to provide essential services across the Central Scotland motorway and Trunk Road network as instructed by and in accordance with guidance provided by Transport Scotland on maintaining essential operations.

These services are essential to ensure that roads, bridges and other structures continue to operate safely and do not fall into a state of disrepair. Therefore, it’s vital that we keep up inspections and undertake any essential maintenance as soon as an issue is identified. We need to maintain a healthy environment for animal and plant life around the network and keep lighting and drainage systems operating effectively. There are also weather-related challenges to be considered, including heavy rainfall and high winds; and we must maintain a rapid response service to deal with incidents on the network and provide vital support to the emergency services. In addition, several small, discrete safety-related schemes will be completed.

The full list of essential services includes:

• Trunk Road Incident Support Service (TRISS)
• Winter Service
• Landslide Patrols
• Incidence Response, including making safe Damage to Crown Property (DCP)
• Safety Inspections, including motorway and trunk road lighting
• Category 1 road defects, i.e. urgent carriageway surface repairs
• Raith Underpass essential safety inspections and maintenance
• Safety related cyclic maintenance, including drainage and gullies
• Grass cutting/vegetation clearance to sight lines and to ensure visibility
• Reactive Structures safety inspections
• General Inspection of Structures
• Temporary Traffic Signals maintenance
• Control Room Operation
• Emergency Response

Supporting Key Workers

Other useful information and website links are shown below:

Scottish Government – Coronavirus in Scotland
https://www.gov.scot/coronavirus-covid-19/

Amey – Supporting Key Workershttps://www.amey.co.uk/covid-19
NHS Scotland
https://www.nhsinform.scot/illnesses-and-conditions/infections-and-poisoning/coronavirus-covid-19

Traffic Scotland - COVID-19 – Travel Advice
https://trafficscotland.org/news/story.aspx?id=17067