Staff at pest control firm almost all back

Scotland’s largest independent pest control firm has welcomed moves designed to get the economy moving.

Blairgowrie-based Graham Environmental Services lost over 75 per cent of its business overnight when the coronavirus lockdown kicked-in.

The vast majority of its 85-strong workforce, which includes sister companies Graham Hygiene Services and Graham Fire Protection, were furloughed to ride out the pandemic storm.

But managing director Ross Graham yesterday revealed he was confident the tide was turning.

“After what had been the most successful couple of years in our 27 years of trading and with so many exciting projects due to happen in 2020, the coronavirus pandemic hit us like a bolt out of the blue,”said the former president of Perthshire Chamber of Commerce.

“It goes without saying that without the government’s Job Retention Scheme I suspect we’d have had no option but to make dozens of people redundant.

“That would have been a last resort, but the March lockdown saw hotels, restaurants, pubs, café’s, takeaways, golf clubs, football clubs, universities, colleges and schools all closing their doors practically overnight.

“Homeowners only wanted us when they required an urgent call-out. The impact on our business was devastating and there were more than a few sleepless nights.

“We maintained a skeleton staff who jumped through hoops with the obvious public health risk and provided emergency cover for a range of essential industries including hospitals, nursing homes, farming clients and busy food producers.

“We expect that not all companies will return to fully functioning, profitable businesses for the foreseeable future and we have therefore been chasing new business, expanding the geographical boundaries in which we operate and also exploring acquisition opportunities to help replace lost business and, more importantly, to ensure there was work for our full complement of staff to return to.

“We have been bringing our employees back on a phased basis over the last three months.

“We now have just three of the 85 workforce not back full-time and I’m confident when the furlough scheme ends we’ll have all our staff back in employment as we look forward to the Scottish hospitality industry opening up again.”

The Perthshire business was established 27 years ago by the late Jimmy Graham and his wife Anna. It is a past Perthshire Chamber Commerce‘Business of theYear’.