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As council prepares for virus, it assures residents there will be …

THE Toowoomba Regional Council is working on the assumption about 30 per cent of its 1800 employees will be absent from work as coronavirus spreads.

This shortage will force tough decisions about which services will close.

In the coming days and weeks, the council will reroute staff with transferable skills to critical services, including water, sewage, waste collection and transport. It also prepared staff to work from home and will send some workers to regional offices.

Residents should prepare for the eventual closure of libraries, aquatic centres and other non-essential services.

However, the council general manager of service delivery, Arun Pratap, reassured residents their tap water will continue to flow, and their wheelie bins will be collected.

TOOWOOMBA residents can be reassured the city’s water, sewage and garbage collection services will run on time when COVID-19 cases spike in the region.

The Toowoomba Regional Council rolled out plans to maintain critical services when an expected 30 per cent of its staff are absent from work.

Arun Pratap, the general manager of service delivery, said that absenteeism could be from staff sick with COVID-19 or parents staying home if schools closed.

“We are looking at ways to resource those critical areas, such as water, sewage, and transport and traffic without loss of service level,” he said.

The council encouraged staff to work from home to increase social distancing.

It will also move staff from the city to regional offices.

Staff at high-risk of catching the virus have already been sent home.

Mr Pratap said the council would look at what other local, state and federal governments did before it closed community facilities, such as libraries and aquatic centres.

“If the state said schools need to close, we would see that as a significant trigger,” Mr Pratap said.

“If there was a particular case of COVID-19 involving those centres, we would close them – there is a suite of things we need to consider.”

Part of this involved gauging community expectations for services.

Mr Pratap said a few days ago, residents were concerned about the loss of community services, but as the public health situation escalated the council would be expected to shut community centres and increase social distancing.

“During this time, we are being as health conscious as we possibly can and have increased cleaning and hygiene services at all our public facilities,” he said.

To date, the Toowoomba Regional Council Local Disaster Management Group had not been activated.

Co-ordinator Kent Stroud expects this will change in coming days.

“When activated, we will support Queensland Health as the lead agency,” he said.