Our economy is slowly coming back to life after spending three months frozen thanks to covid-19.
Salford Now will be speaking to multiple Salford businesses on how they’re coping with re-opening, and what measures they are taking to survive in our collective ‘new normal’.
Today we spoke to Anchor Removals & Storage, based in Worsley. They reopened much earlier than most, back on 14th May.
“From an operational point of view, it’s been very hit and miss”
Chris Smallwood, managing director for Anchor Removals Limited, said: “We taught [our staff] social distancing, we practiced social distancing, that went really well and we decided that we were ready on the 14th May to get back when the housing market reopened.
“We don’t have a huge amount of staff here, we’ve got a staff of less than ten.
“From an operational point of view, it’s been very hit and miss.
“Business has been sporadic, we’ve had little peaks and little troughs.
“I was asked the other day by a colleague what I think about it, the best description is that ‘it’s a bit weird’. We’re adjusting, it’s still very strange.”
The Government relaxed social distancing guidelines on the 4th of July, although many businesses are hesitant to go entirely back to normal.
Mr Smallwood outlined how their operating procedures have changed: “Going into people’s houses is a challenge, we ask them to socially distance from us.
“We always operate teams of two now, and we ask the customer to only have one person in the house to supervise…in a socially distanced way ideally in a separate room from where we are operating.
“We ask them to have their windows open, we make sure that before we enter a property we’ve asked the client to clean the property down and we also offer what’s called a fogging service which is we can go in the days before a move or the day after a move into a new property and we spray a very fine mist around the property that carries an antibacterial agent kills covid-19”.
Chris says that they’ve had “nothing but goodwill” from their clients, and Anchor have made an effort to support their workers by not offering zero hour contracts and paying the living wage.
“Please support your local businesses.
“Ask them about their procedures during the covid outbreak. [if they have] no real credentials other than they are a man and a van, there is the danger that you are inviting the possible spread of covid into your house”.
At timeof writing, Salford has 1,319 confirmed cases of Covid-19.
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