Clarification on Alert Level 0

Dear Member,

There appears to be some confusion out there regarding the requirements announced yesterday for Level 0 in Hospitality businesses.

That is not surprising given the chopping and changing of the requirements that has gone on this week following challenges to the proposed requirements made by us in the LHA. The current situation is likely to change once the Civil servants return to work, however, as of today the requirements for us all to follow are thus;

Restaurants, cafes, Bars and Nightclubs are allowed to open fully with no restrictions on capacity and no requirement for them to complete Track, Trace, Protect collecting of customers details. No face masks are required by anyone working in the businesses though staff may wish to wear them.

Hotels can now permit staff not to wear face masks when working in a Restaurant, Bar or Cafe facility in the Hotel, however they are required to wear masks when in the common public areas of the Hotel as these are deemed to be Public spaces just as a shop or Museum. Guests over the age of 12 are also required to wear masks when moving around the common areas of the Hotel. We all know that this is illogical and strong representations have been made right up to 5pm last night by both LHA as well as The Retail Consortium who do not understand how a supermarket such as Asda is deemed more of a risk than people gathering in a nightclub shoulder to shoulder etc, so we strongly suspect that next week there will be a change to this.

There is no requirement for table service in cafes or Bars, and Buffet/Carvery facilities can return. Perspex screens are not required though businesses may deem them desirable in which case they need to be entered in to the Risk Assessment as being a decision that business takes.

Full legislative details are available on this link https://gov.wales/alert-level-0-guidance-employers-businesses-and-organisations-html

Special attention should be paid to the reasonable measures to be undertaken at the end of the document.

I hope that this helps to clarify the situation, though I am available if anyone wishes to discuss further.

Berin Jones

Chairman