‘The heat slows you down

Zohaib Hussain, owner of Zero Plus Fish Bar, Cowbridge Road East, Cardiff:

We have double doors at the front, which are always open.

We’ve got a fan in the shop which is always on and we make sure we keep hydrated with plenty of drinks.

At least one person is serving, one person is cooking, so we’re always in the shop and can’t leave the frying range unattended.

We have lidded pans on the fryer which we keep closed. Sometimes in the fish and chip shops they stay open, but we have lids on them.

So when the chips go in and the fish go in we make sure that the lids are down on the pans so the heat stays in.

The worst thing you want is when you put the food in and all the steam and the heat escapes which makes it even hotter in the shop.

Last year during the hot snap we had it got to 41C in the shop. It was really tough, especially as we were fasting then as well, so we had no food or drink.

But luckily this heatwave has come after Ramadan, so at least we can drink. Last year it was a nightmare.

At least it’s nice in the winter!

Roy Harwood, works manager, Alun Griffiths Contractors, who looks after a team of 32 working on creating cycle and pathways around the city for Cardiff Council:

We are in Blackweir car park creating dedicated cycle path and footpath along North Road.

Apart from the air temperature, there’s the manual labour with the sun on your back and the heat generated from tarmacing, so it can get very hot.

We do have special measures in place for the crews working on site. They have a briefing every morning, when we warn our employees about the safety arising from the conditions they are working in. We let them know there’s always water on tap and water coolers available – that they can have as much water as possible.

We also tell them to take regular breaks and find themselves some shade. It’s not practical to try and work through on a day like today.

We also provide sun cream and everything we can possibly do to help we will do.

The temperature of tarmac is well over 100C.

Once it’s laid down you’ve got the heat coming off the tarmac and the heat of the sun.

If we were laying tarmac on a road it probably wouldn’t be practical given the heat, but because we can contain