Colas Response to COVID-19

Colas recognises that the spread of the COVID-19 has major implications for public health, public services and businesses generally, and is continually monitoring the evolving situation and taking precautions to minimise the potential risk of COVID-19 on our business, taking careful account of latest government and public health advice.

We have formed a dedicated COVID-19 Risk Management Group to coordinate our approach and actions to manage the risks associated with the pandemic. The Risk Management Group met immediately following the Prime Minister’s announcement at 8.30pm on 24 March updating us on Government guidelines.

In recent weeks, mindful of lessons learned from our sister companies of the Colas Group, we have been preparing and implementing necessary plans for managing through just such a scenario we now all face, until further notice:

• Business Continuity Plans have been prepared and implemented
• We have moved all non-critical staff to home working and tested systems for resilience Essential functions HR, IT, payroll & accounts have been resilience tested and are all working well

Given the rapidly changing context for COVID-19 outbreak and its continued spread, we are taking all possible measures to protect the health and safety of our employees, customers, suppliers and communities in which we work.

From this morning Colas Ltd is taking the following action:

• Taking into consideration UK Government Cabinet Office guidance covering those organisations and persons engaged in maintaining essential transport networks such as road, rail and air, we will assess the practicalities of being able to continue our site-based operations taking into consideration feedback from our clients and our supply chain.
• Our offices will move to immediate lockdown, with attendance strictly limited to only those staff critical to business continuity allowed on the premises such as those involved in IT support, and only then in absolute minimum numbers.
• A Q & A factsheet is being sent regularly to colleagues which answers their most frequently asked questions, inviting them to send any specific issues via a dedicated email address into our the HR team.
• Any employee suspecting, or confirmed that they have the COVID-19 virus will report it immediately to their Managers, who in turn will report any case to the HR team immediately.
• Additional appropriate PPE has been supplied for risk-assessed activities
• No external/overseas visitors are allowed on Colas UK or Isle of Man sites/locations unless business critical. Non-business critical visitors will be discouraged from visiting our sites/locations.

We will issue regular updates on the approach Colas is taking regarding protection against COVID-19 and the prevention of the spread of the virus We are also working with our supply chain and our customers regarding their business continuity arrangements in response to COVID-19, sharing with them the guidance that has been circulated to our employees.

If you have any queries, please contact your usual key Colas contact or email us at info@colas.co.uk.

These are unprecedented times and we will continue to provide updates as the situation evolves.

Carl Fergusson
Chief Executive Officer