By Jenel Hunt
Safety concerns regarding the Warwick Saleyards have been highlighted at the recent meeting of the Southern Downs Regional Council.
Cr Cynthia McDonald raised the issue of around 1600 head going through the saleyards on Tuesday 16 April and people working into the night under inadequate lighting conditions to process the animals.
There were a number of concerns raised in regard to agents and also customers and transport companies, she said.
“It is our facility and these are workplace health and safety issues. Individuals were working into the night, some of them as late as 10pm trying to weigh cattle with inappropriate lighting. How are we addressing this? And why are the scales not upgraded yet? From the previous council, we had the mayor move that the [new] scales be implemented during the Christmas period.”
Corporate and community services director Leon Love acknowledged there were significant safety concerns at the saleyards.
He said a consultant had been on site for the past two weeks to help identify practices that were of the greatest concern and to deal with the issues.
He said it had not been practical for the scales to be upgraded at Christmas time and that conversations had been held with agents in terms of the best timing for the upgrade of the scales. The scales could be out of commission for four to six weeks because of the required construction and issues like concrete curing times.
“We acknowledge that the 1600 or 1700 head is an abnormal number but we left it up to the agents entirely to determine the number of head that have gone through the scales, and relied on their experience as agents to determine what’s a reasonable and safe number,” Mr Love said.
He said that given the limited capacity of the yards and the fact that previous sales had been 1200 or 1300 head, he was extremely surprised they would put that number of beasts through the yards.
“That’s out of our control. The agents are responsible for managing the flow of cattle through the yards. Obviously it impacts the safe operating procedures.
“One of the consultant’s tasks has been to raise the subject of safety with the agents.
“We will be working with them over the coming weeks following our appointment of an additional consultant to develop the standard operating procedures that will go along with the new layout.”
He said an induction process would be undertaken to introduce new processes and new efficiencies, which would be completely documented.
“I acknowledge that there are risks there. We’ve done everything within our means in a short space of time to address those concerns and put things back on track.”
Mr Love said the Warwick Saleyards project was progressing well despite delays due to wet weather.
The completion of stage one was expected by mid-May. At that time, the entire eastern area of the saleyards would be open for use and work would start on the western area where holding pens would be demolished to make way for the construction of new pens and ramps, he said.
