Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd (CMAL) has resumed all harbour upgrade and maintenance projects following the Covid-19 lockdown.
Work to restart projects began in early June as a phased approach, in line with the Scottish Government’s guidance for the construction industry. Initial plans were focused on site preparations, with 2-metre distancing and hygiene measures put in place, and included mainland harbours only to begin with to minimise travel. However, most harbour projects across the network are now running again and CMAL is making steady progress to make up for time lost during the lockdown, albeit with adherence to Covid-19 guidelines.
CMAL shut down all construction and planned maintenance works across its harbours network from late March when the coronavirus lockdown came into force.
During lockdown, CMAL’s port infrastructure team carried out essential works only to maintain harbour safety. Statutory maintenance inspections continued, and a small number of minor repairs were required on linkspans, fenders and passenger access systems in order to maintain the lifeline ferry services.
Whilst on site construction and maintenance activities were largely stopped during lockdown, the CMAL team were still working with suppliers to continue the design and development of upcoming projects.
Ramsay Muirhead, Director of Port Infrastructure & Planning, CMAL said:
“Like all businesses that work in the construction sector, we had to halt all our harbour work, which has never happened in CMAL’s history. Clearly, we had to ensure essential ferry services continued to operate during lockdown, so our team and suppliers were on call to attend to essential repairs. This turned out to be fairly low volume during the lockdown period, but it’s a vital aspect of our work.
“We’re now working with our suppliers to clear the backlog and have made excellent progress in the past few weeks.”
Source: CMAL