Email to all staff - 4.20pm 25 February

Dear all,

Following confirmation yesterday that all our permanent Lincoln staff are accounted for and not injured the focus today has been on continuing to track down a small number of casual staff and students who had proved difficult to reach in recent days. To the best of our knowledge we have managed to contact all people in this group and there are no reports of injuries.

Our Lincoln site continues to have power, water and phone services and today local members of the Assets & Services team completed an assessment of the site’s infrastructure, declaring it safe for reopening.

The Lincoln site will therefore reopen officially on Monday morning, subject to local conditions and applicable Civil Defence advisories on the day. Attendance will be strictly voluntary and staff who wish to work from home are welcome to do so if this is practical. Naturally personal safety and family wellbeing is everybody’s first priority. Special Paid Leave is in place for those attending to family concerns as well as for anyone wanting to volunteer in their community. These same Special Leave provisions apply to all staff at all sites.

Peter Landon-Lane has today issued a public statement offering sympathy and support to all those affected by the earthquake on behalf of Plant & Food Research. You can read this online.

Roger Bourne
On behalf of the team