FRIGHTENED WORKERS FELT LIKE ‘CANNON FODDER’ AT VI
HAVEN holiday parks said preparations were now underway to open its Welsh sites next month.
Last week Gerard Tempest, guest and proposition director, spoke about wanting an update from the Welsh Government on potential opening dates for holiday parks after losing three months to lockdown.
He said they would need time to prepare ahead of any reopening.
On Friday First Minister Mark Drakeford confirmed the tourism sector in Wales could start to reopen from July 6 - with outdoors attractions the first to get the green light.
He said visitors could stay in holiday cottages, caravan parks and hotels that have adjusted to allow guests to be “self contained” from July 13.
Now Mr Tempest has confirmed they are now preparing their nine Welsh sites for that July 13 date.
They employs hundreds of workers in North Wales, at Hafan y Mor in Pwllheli, Greenacres in Porthmadog, and Presthaven, at Gronant, near Prestatyn.
In England their parks will open to owners on July 4 as restrictions are eased with a July 6 opening for holidaymakers while in Scotland they are provisionally earmarked to open on July 15.
Haven believe beyond the official guideline public confidence is key and say bookings for 2020 have been “okay” while those for 2021 have been strong.
To build that confidence Haven has made three key announcements.
The first was the booking guarantee - giving holidaymakers additional flexibility and cancellation rights and it was followed by their hideaway product - an offering for a more secluded and Covid-19 safe break.
They then unveiled a six point Clean and Safe Charter which spelt out the measures it was using to keep guests safe on sites.
Speaking to North Wales Live last week Gerard said: “We saw from the start that in these massively uncertain times people needed reassurance and we have done that with ourthree point plan.
“What we are hearing from guests is there is a high degree of confidence in our ability to make them safe and feel safe but what is coming out is concern about how we control any bad behaviour from the small number of guests who may not comply.”
While parks will open next month not all facilities will be available initially.
Gerard is hopeful that restaurants, swimming pools and bars will follow over the summer.
He said: “We hope they will open but we don’t know they will.
“We are looking at our bars, restaurants, pools and how we can best maintain social distance if guidelines allow us to open these facilities.
“We believe we will at some point in the summer be able to open them and we are looking at how we manage that.”
TERRIFIED workers at a coronavirus-hit Anglesey abattoir yesterday told how they were “scared to breathe” as colleagues “dropped like flies” around them.
The 2 Sisters chicken factory in Llangefni was shut for two weeks last Thursday as the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases at the plant mounted.
More than 175 workers have already tested positive for the disease with the Army conducting mass testing at sites in Llangefni, Holyhead and Bangor.
The first worker fell ill at the end of May. By June 12, three workers had tested positive and dozens of others were off self isolating.
The infections then rose rapidly with 12 reported by last Monday and more than 50 by Thursday when the decision was taken to close the site for two weeks.
Since then more than 400 workers have been tested at Army run mobile testing sites – with 175 confirmed cases by yesterday – showing the scale of the problem.
The company says it introduced a raft of measures to protect workers from the virus.
However workers, who did not wish to be named, have told about life at the factory as coronavirus took hold and what they believe went wrong.
One worker said the situation was “terrifying”.
He added: “We could see people around us catching it and going off ill, and we had to carry on, scared to breathe at times, knowing it was in the air around us.”
Another added: “We felt like cannon fodder in there.
“People were very frightened, especially the older ones.
“Word spread very quickly along the line when people tested positive.
“This caused utmost distress and
THE number of positive coronavirus cases linked to an outbreak at an Anglesey abattoir has risen to 175.
Public Health Wales [PHW] has confirmed that 17 more employees from the 2 Sisters chicken processing plant in Llangefni have tested positive for Covid-19.
In an update on their work to control the outbreak, PHW said they had taken more than 400 samples from workers so far, and said the increase in the number of positive cases was to be expected.
PHW added that they were aware of a number of staff members living in houses of multiple occupation.
A spokesman said: “The outbreak control team has been made aware that a significant number of the 2 Sisters workforce are migrant workers who live in houses of multiple occupation.
“Evidence shows that where people live in houses of multiple occupancy it can be difficult to practice social distancing.
“We encourage all those living in such homes to be particularly vigilant about maintaining social distancing, practicing hand hygiene and cleaning surfaces around the home.”
alarm.”
One worker said: “It is a frightening situation when the people you are working with are dropping like flies. We have families to think about.”
The workers claimed social distancing was not implemented in production areas with groups of three working side by side - often rotating.
He said: “The two metre rule is enforced in corridors and the canteen but staff were only there for very short periods of the day, the big problem is there was no two metre safety provided in the production areas and staff were forced to work within inches of others.”
They said visors given to them had holes cut in to prevent ‘steaming.’
In response 2 Sisters said a raft of measures were introduced in response to the coronavirus crisis in the UK.
The company said the mandatory wearing of face visors was deployed across the site where social distanc