Rolls-Royce defends decision to keep small number of staff on site during coronavirus outbreak

A member of the public contacted Leader Times Newspapers to say that permanent staff at the national engineering company had been sent home in light of the ongoing coronavirus outbreak with just agency staff working at the sites, something which he believed was "putting their families at risk".

A spokesman for Rolls-Royce confirmed that a small number of staff would continue working at the site for jsut several days.

The spokesman said: “Last week we decided to significantly reduce all but essential activity within our UK Civil Aerospace facilities for one week from midnight on 27th March.

"We continue to have key personnel on site during this period while we confirm the effectiveness of the measures taken to date and enhance our processes in order to sustain modified operations and activities over a longer period.

"The small number of staff remaining on site are following government guidelines including social distancing and hand sanitizing.”

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