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Workers on Herefordshire farm at centre of coronavirus outbreak visited shops last week, MP reveals

AS Green & Co - Matthew Horwood/Getty
AS Green & Co - Matthew Horwood/Getty

Workers on a Herefordshire farm at the centre of a coronavirus outbreak were driven to four shops in the area last week, it emerged yesterday, as two of the three vegetable packers who absconded were traced.

Bill Wiggin, Tory MP for North Herefordshire, took the unusual step of revealing on his website that workers at AS Green & Co, in Mathon, were driven by minibus to Primark, Iceland and a Romanian store in Worcester and to Morrisons in Malvern.

It came as former workers claimed hygiene on the site was poor, with workers sharing one lavatory with up to 60 others and no requirement to wear face masks.

West Mercia police had been working with Public Health England (PHE) to track down three workers who fled the premises, one of whom had tested positive for Covid-19.

Last night, PHE confirmed that two of the three, including the one with the virus, had “got in touch” to confirm they were safe and were self isolating.

Mr Wiggin said he had named the stops because residents were keen to know if they had come into contact with workers from the farm.

“It is reassuring to hear that Public Health England have declared there is no immediate threat to the wider community, however, we must not be complacent,” he said.

The first worker on the farm began feeling unwell last Tuesday and by the weekend, 73 had tested positive for the virus. It is not known which days the shop visits were made.

A spokesman for Iceland said that staff at its Worcester store had no recollection of the farm workers visiting but were confident that company guidelines for social distancing, hygiene and operating processes were being followed. Primark, too, said that all stores had extensive safety measures in place.

The family owned farm, which supplies Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury's Aldi and Asda, was forced into lockdown at the weekend.

Around 200 staff are expected to spend a fortnight living in isolation, as one extended bubble, on site.

In order to try and keep the workers, most of whom are Eastern European, at the farm, the local authority was said to be offering them “beer and cigarettes”.

Concerns have been raised about the working practices on the farm. Government advice for seasonal workers allows those travelling to the UK to start working on farms straight away, providing they are living and working on site.

However, the rules state that they must remain in a bubble with colleagues who arrived in the UK within the same 24-hour period and have no contact with other staff.

Government advice for seasonal workers allows those travelling to the UK to start working on farms straight away, providing they are living and working on site.

However, the rules state that they must remain in a bubble with colleagues who arrived in the UK within the same 24-hour period and have no contact with other staff.

One former employee has claimed that workers in the farm’s pack house never had to wear face masks.

She claimed the only PPE provided in the was hairnets and beard nets and an “outer jacket that old fashioned green grocer would wear.” Gloves were optional, she added.

She told the Guardian that 40 people worked in the bigger of two rooms in the packing house. "There isn't much spare space and no social distancing," she said.

Brandon Burridge and Leah Johnson, a couple from Malvern, Worcestershire, have described how they signed up to work on the farm after seeing its Pick for Britain adverts in the local press.

They left on July 2, before the virus outbreak.

Ms Johnson, 21, claimed during an induction process about 15 people had been sitting on shared benches with no mention of keeping 2m apart. "There was nothing about hand sanitiser, we weren't given any. We were not allowed to wear gloves," she told the BBC.

"It seemed strange to us, but we thought because it was an outdoor job, the risk of coronavirus would be low. But we hadn't considered the shared facilities.

"People were saying 'there is only one toilet' - that is ridiculous - and it got quite gross quite quickly, and we were told [by other team members] to avoid it all costs.

"There was one bit of hand sanitiser in the toilet."

Karen Wright, Herefordshire Council’s director of public health, has insisted there is no threat to the local community and that the quarantined workers are being given the "best support".