As social distancing rules continue to tighten across the country, Rakem Group, the Lancashire-based chemical manufacturers and distributors are well-placed to adapt.
With Burnley considered as the current Covid hotspot in the UK, many in the northwest are calling for righter restrictions in the area.
Lancashire Resilience Forum (LRF) chair Angie Ridgwell said coronavirus was “biting back quite significantly” and appealed to residents to take the situation “incredibly seriously”.
"Our strong advice in Lancashire to all our residents and businesses is that people should not socialise with anyone outside of their household either inside or outside," Ms. Ridgwell said. She also warned people only to use public transport for "essential purposes".
The mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, has also expressed his concerns at some of the current national rules, particularly the 10pm curfew on bars and restaurants:
Mr Burnham told the BBC’s Today programme: ‘I received reports that the supermarkets were absolutely packed out to the rafters with people gathering. I think there needs to be an urgent review of the emerging evidence from police forces across the country.
‘My gut feeling is that this curfew is doing more harm than good. It creates an incentive for people to gather in the street or more probably to gather in the home.
‘That is the opposite of what our local restrictions here are trying to do. I don’t think this has been fully thought through.’
As an alternative, he suggested allowing bars and restaurants to stay open later but banning the sale of alcohol across the board from 9pm.
Speaking to the same programme, health minister Helen Whately said that the government was learning from experience:
‘It is clearly early days. We have just changed this rule last week.
‘We keep an open mind on what is the best way to go about it. The steps that we have taken, particularly with the 10pm curfew, is something that we have done in some places during the course of the summer where we saw localised outbreaks and hospitality being part of the picture.
‘We are constantly learning and seeing what has the most impact but we clearly need to take a step because of what we have seen with the rates going up across the country.’
Regardless of how the rules change over the coming days or months, Rakem Group is fully confident that it will be able to adapt. Writing on the company website, the board and senior managers said:
‘The manufacturing plant continues to run and, following significant investment in PPE (with helpful advice from the Health & Safety Executive), we believe that we have taken the necessary precautions to ensure the safety of all staff across all departments. We are working over two sites and limiting contact between individuals.
‘Our account managers continue to contact all customers to ensure we have their forecasted orders and can continue delivering orders. We are working together to try and anticipate potential issues that may arise as a consequence of the virus.
‘All our office staff have the ability to work from home and as such daily operations will never be affected.
‘In the event of an emergency shut down, the UK Government will be looking at manufacturing sites case by case. We will release another statement in this extreme case in due course.
‘In the meantime, we are working at full capacity to ensure all orders are fulfilled.
With an eye on the difficulties some of their customers may be facing, they added, ‘As toll manufacturers, we may be able to help individuals/businesses who are struggling during this time. We are happy to take requests and review them case by case.’
