Ref: FV/COVID19/UPDATE Date: 30th March 2020
Fort Vale would like to take this opportunity to update our colleagues, customers and suppliers on the situation we currently find ourselves in. Due to the ongoing and ever-changing developments with the global pandemic relating to the COVID-19 Coronavirus we feel it is appropriate to keep everyone informed as much as possible.
UK Position (30/3/20)
The UK government last week enforced school closures, only remaining open for key workers (Police, Fire, Medical etc) children.
The schools, childcare and other educational settings will be closed until further notice.
The government have instructed the British public to only leave the house for the following reasons:
► shopping for basic necessities, for example food and medicine, which must be as infrequent as possible
► one form of exercise a day, for example a run, walk, or cycle – alone or with members of your household
► any medical need, including to donate blood, avoid or escape risk of injury or harm, or to provide care or to help a vulnerable person
► travelling for work purposes, but only where you cannot work from home
The guidance around whether employees should stay at home or go to work is as follows:
► You may travel for work purposes, but only where you cannot work from home.
► Certain jobs require people to travel to their place of work – for instance if they operate machinery, work in construction or manufacturing, or are delivering front line services such as train and bus drivers.
► Employers and employees should discuss their working arrangements, and employers should take every possible step to facilitate their employees working from home, including providing suitable IT and equipment to enable remote working.
Fort Vale Position (30/3/20)
Fort Vale are working with UK Government and World Health Organisation guidelines and have taken measures to reduce the impact and risk of the spread of the virus within our organisation. We have started implementing home working where possible and have marked out appropriate spacing on the floors to assist with social distancing. Sanitising activities are on-going, PPE has been issued to employees and business travel and on-site visits restricted.
As yet we are not experiencing any major difficulties in our supply chain due to having alternative options should we require them, however with the constantly changing international government restrictions on movement we are monitoring this closely. We are also currently having no major difficulties exporting products from the UK to various locations around the world.
We will continue to keep you our valued customers, suppliers and business partners up to date on progress of any enquiries and production orders as best we can in these difficult times.
If we are instructed by the government to take harsher measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19, or if conditions significantly worsen in the UK, then we will continue to update you should there be any developments to our situation at Fort Vale.
At this time, we are fully operational with a full complement of staff at both the Shanghai and UK factories. Our satellite offices around the world are also fully staffed to help with customer enquiries.
We hope everyone remains safe and healthy in these testing times.
Graham Blanchard
Global Sales & Marketing Director