Rising to the challenge

Hot off the success of our first joint Construction, Property, Heritage & Trade Exhibition in February this year, events took an unprecedented turn with the announcement of the global pandemic COVID-19. In line with government advice, APS scaled back its fieldwork programme and sent staff to work at home for what we thought would be a few short weeks.

On 23rd March 2020, the English government announced a full countrywide lockdown and so our organisation ceased all site based operations. Work however did not stop; instead, staff made use of their time by concentrating on much of our desk-top based projects, post-excavation work, report writing and completing various training courses and attaining long-over due accreditations for their work. In particular, Jon Smith has achieved both his full drone flying licence and associate membership of the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists!

Since lockdown restrictions have begun to ease, there has been a gradual return to work within the construction sector and APS have been embracing new ways of working. Supported by local based health & safety professionals, Arion, our Risk Assessments have been fully updated along with our office working practises (although for the time being our office is still effectively closed to all but essential visits). Clients and partners can be confident that we adhere to best practise in terms of social distancing, PPE, and access to regular hand sanitisation, along with adherence to any site specific requirements.

We are looking forward to working with all our clients again and already have a busy summer ahead. Should you have any concerns about working with our archaeological team on site with current government regulations, please do not hesitate to call our office for a discussion about ensuring your requirements are met.