Delivery of Critical Services
We continue to provide critical services and these are currently operating without issue.
New COVID-19 Ayrshire Regional Testing Site
A new COVID-19 Ayrshire regional testing site is now operating in Prestwick. This new testing site, on Welsh Road near Prestwick Airport, replaces the mobile testing unit in front of the Airport’s terminal building. Tests have to be booked in advance and more information can be found at https://beta.south-ayrshire.gov.uk/…/19676/Test-and-Protect–
Car Parks
Following a request from Police Scotland on Sunday afternoon, we re-opened North Esplanade car park, Links Road, Prestwick due to the volume of traffic in the local area. The car park will be closed again tonight and we will review the re-opening of all car parks that are currently closed over the coming weeks.
Care Homes
We have now carried out visits to 13 of the 26 care homes in South Ayrshire and anticipate completing the majority of visits by the end of next week.
Recycling Centres
As confirmed in previous Briefings, our Household Waste Recycling Centres, including two additional ‘pop-up’ sites (for general/black bag waste only) in Ayr and Girvan, reopened today. We put out extensive communications to the public in advance of reopening. These included press releases, social media, radio adverts, maps of each centre and surrounding roads and a short video to advise on the public health measures in place. We also advised the public that we expected centres to be busy and encouraged them to consider delaying visits if possible.
As anticipated, centres were extremely busy from opening this morning. Traffic management has been successful at, and around each site. Waste Management Officers based on sites will link with Communications team to issue live tweets/Facebook updates as necessary to advise the public of queues.
Golf
The reopening of golf courses has been extremely popular and we have now issued 2078 flexible memberships. Staff are actively reminding golfers to observe the measures we have put in place to ensure physical distancing is maintained at courses. The the vast majority of golfers are adhering to these measures.
Support For Local Businesses
The Economy and Regeneration Team launched the eighth issue of their e-magazine Business Beat. This issue focusses on Advice and Funding around Tourism and can be accessed here.
Communication
Last month saw a further increase in SAC Live Facebook followers, with the total post reach for May in excess of 352,000. Some of our top reaching posts were around the re-opening of Household Waste Recycling Centres (41,899 reach); special/bulky uplifts resuming (20,073 reach); and information on current COVID-19 related scams (19,406 reach).