Essential work often takes two working closely
14 April 2020
Workers out there to keep services running
Tweed Shire Council staff continue to deliver essential services during the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis while taking every precaution to adhere to physical distancing and other COVID legislation.
Essential services undertaken by Council include maintaining and delivering safe drinking water to 90,000 residents; maintaining an efficient sewerage system with no sewage overflow into the environment or people’s homes; collecting and processing household and industrial waste; repairing roads and footpaths to ensure the safety of motorists and pedestrians; ensuring new buildings are constructed to be safe and comply with the relevant building code; and to ensure the safety of people moving around our parks and open spaces.
“Where we can deliver our services remotely without our people moving around the Tweed we are doing so. But, we cannot fix a broken sewer or flush discoloured water from a pipeline without going outside,” General Manager Troy Green said.
“To do our jobs and keep the Tweed community safe and supplied with the essential services they expect, sometimes we need to send two or more personnel to site to work together.
“While we are taking every precaution to allow two workers working together to maintain physical distancing – including ordering more fleet vehicles to provide physical separation when travelling to site – sometimes we just cannot separate people because to do so exposes them to higher risks. Examples of this are undertaking a two-person lift; placing pipework in a trench and patching potholes from the safety of a vehicle rather than while walking along a road.”
Workplace Health and Safety regulations require Council to ‘reduce risks as far as is reasonably practicable’. COVID-19 regulations require everyone to maintain physical distancing of 1.5 metres.
“The safety of Council’s workforce and the community is the organisation’s priority during this COVID-19 crisis. To that end, Council has closed its contact centres, art gallery and museum, aquatic centres and libraries and is doing all it can to continue to deliver these important services remotely or online,” he said.
“We’re seeing some fantastic innovation within the organisation and its business arms to provide continuing services to our customers. The Tweed Regional Gallery and Margaret Olley Art Centre have taken this year’s Border Art Prize 2020 online and the Museum is hosting Facebook discussions to keep history alive for young and old. We’ve also conducted our first virtual Council meeting, live-streaming it to the community, but we cannot build and fix roads or treat water and wastewater and pick up garbage without being out there.
“We understand the community angst around physical distancing and everyone doing their bit to stop the spread of this virus. At Council we take that very seriously and have ramped up our cleaning and sanitation services to ensure staff and community safety in staff and community building and public toilets. We’ll continue to do more as we identify further areas of risk.”
Anyone who wishes to report concerns about physical distancing or other issues where people are not complying with a Public Health Order in the community should contact CrimeStoppers by visiting https://nsw.crimestoppers.com.au/ or calling 1800 333 000.