28 Mar, 2020
City of Adelaide continues to deliver essential services
This week the City of Adelaide enacted its four-week Business Continuity Plan, meaning Council has a strong plan in place for business and essential services to continue.
The Business Continuity Plan is in place to provide essential services to the community but with a reduced capacity. The City of Adelaide Customer Centre continues to be open for its usual hours, calls are being answered and customer queries addressed, and Council’s website continues to be updated.
Planning, building and public health teams are still operational. Outdoor staff are keeping the city clean, and Community Safety Officers are keeping the city safe.
Those not currently working have been provided with two weeks’ pay and have been asked to take a further two weeks annual leave. After this four-week period, it is intended that they will return to work either physically or online from home.
Council has established a small business task force that is providing consistent and up to date information to city businesses on support packages and other services available from Federal, State, Local Government, Peak bodies and Industry Associations. The team will continue to maintain regular contact with our Precincts and city businesses.
The City of Adelaide also recently announced a $4 million support package to support city businesses, residents and visitors during this time.
Council has retained approximately 300 essential staff at work to provide key services to our community, enact our $4 million city support package, and develop an IT solution to support the remainder of our employees working from home in the coming weeks.
Projects and services are still underway.
Projects
The City of Adelaide continues to operate and deliver key infrastructure projects and asset maintenance renewals during this time.
We continue to deliver on the ground 104 projects with a capital value of $36 million. If work has commenced, is contracted and is able to be delivered safely by our staff, project partners and contractors then our plan is to continue uninterrupted with these projects.
The City of Adelaide will continue to progress with major projects such as Central Market Arcade Redevelopment and 88 O’Connell Street.
The delivery of these projects will provide significant economic stimulus to the city and property / retail markets.
Council wishes to ensure that priority stimulus projects such as these are optimally timed to engage formally with the open market at a time when economic stability occurs. Critically, this will see key projects reaching the market with maximum momentum.
We have adopted a balanced approach to support the health and safety of our project teams and the critical nature of some works. We have tailored our works package to suit the current supply of materials and services available in the market.
Services that are continuing:
- Planning & Development
- Building Services
- Design Services
- Digital library services
- Homeless services
- Event site bookings (for the future)
- Traffic Management
- Infrastructure, including maintenance
- Horticulture
- Cleansing
- Park Lands Maintenance
- Commonwealth Home Support
- Environmental Health
- Public Safety
- U-Parks
- Property & Commercial
- Waste Management
- Customer Centre
- Procurement & Contract Management
- Subsidiaries – ACMA & RMMA
City of Adelaide CEO Mark Goldstone said that it is still business as usual at this time for many projects and services but not at the cost of people’s safety.
“The response plan we have actioned is in place for a range of emergency situations such as this. It means we are operating at a reduced capacity, but all essential services will continue to be carried out,” said Mr Goldstone.
“From a planning perspective, City of Adelaide uses its e-planning system for all planning and building matters which is always in operation and key staff are available to help.
“We have increased our cleansing service level in the public realm. Waste collection will continue as per usual, and infrastructure maintenance will continue.
“I also want to encourage people to safely use the Park Lands to get some fresh air and to exercise, while observing social distancing rules.
“Playground and exercise equipment are being monitored daily. We recommend people use their own sanitiser wipes prior to use.
“Enacting this plan is necessary to ensure that we comply with social distancing guidelines and ensure the safety and wellbeing of our staff, but I can reassure everyone that all essential services will continue.
“Also, our teams have already turned their minds to planning for the recovery and are getting ready to move forward quickly on infrastructure projects and stimulus packages once the COVID-19 crisis is over.”
The City of Adelaide encourages people to visit https://www.cityofadelaide.com.au/blog/coronavirus-covid-19-latest-information/ or call our helpful staff on 8203 7203 (during office hours) should they have questions about Council services or any other questions.
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