AS the debate about whether the UK construction industry should keep working, differing views have manifested themselves in Thurrock.

A growing number of construction companies have said they will stop all non-essential work to help fight the coronavirus, but others continue to operate amid confusion over the government's advice.

The issue caught light yesterday (Tuesday, 24 March) when hundreds of construction workers were pictured on public transport in London, breaching guidelines on social distancing. And other images of construction workers on city construction projects showed workers side by side, rather than meters apart.

Guidance from the government has been mixed and many of the self-employed people who work in the construction industry say they have to go in to work because there is no financial alternative.

Yesterday Health Secretary Matt Hancock said any worker who could not do their job from home should go to work to "keep the country running".

But soon Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, told ITV only construction workers doing jobs "critical to the economy" should go in.

Today the big housebuilding companies – many of who have sites in Thurrock - have expressed differing opinions.

Bellway, which currently has large sites at Lakeside and Devonshire Drive in West Thurrock, is among those who say they will be shutting down.

A company statement said it was closing its 200 building sites by the end of Friday, with site managers only allowed onto developments to maintain security or to hand over keys to buyers.

Bellway chief executive Jason Honeyman said the decision to shut its construction sites in spite of being exempt from the Government-imposed lockdown came as a result of fears for worker safety.

He said: "We weren't convinced we could police the social distancing or keep workers two metres apart at sites. There's always some people who ignore it."

But Redrow, which is building 80 homes on Lower Dunton Road near Horndon on the Hill says that it is keeping sites open for now, with workers adhering to social distancing.

Smaller, independent builders appear to be in the most jeopardy. Thurrock Nub News editor Neil Speight visited one such site today where three self-employed construction workers have been contracted to build a new home for a private customer.

Speaking from a distance, the workers said they felt they had been put in a very difficult position and they had been verbally abused by some passers-by – but they felt they had no choice but to continue.

One said: "Just the three of us have been working on this site for three months now. Any deliveries are dropped off by the front gate and we have the equipment to move it.

"It's a wide open site and we are not on top of each other but it is inevitable we will have some contact with each other, However, we are all healthy and all go back to our own homes where we have been effectively isolated with our families.

"We come straight to work from home and go straight back. As we are all healthy we feel we are not at risk of picking up the virus by contact at work. If we don't come in we won't get paid. We may lose the contract and then where will we and our families be?

"We are not stupid, we are careful and we are responsible to ourselves and our families. We have not had a great deal of guidance and no help at all as been offered to the self-employed financially. So we feel we have to work on until we are ordered to stop."

Those sentiments were echoed by a self-employed carpenter on another site who said he drove straight to the work, did not use public transport and was not going out socially. He said: "I must be in just as much risk at home with my family as I am here. This is extended self-isolation, I am working in the open and we keep out of each other's way on the site. This is not hundreds of workers crammed into a high rise city office development! It's a small building site where one home is going up!"