DVLA Swansea: Wear More Clothes, Staff Told, as Heating Breaks
In the News
Over 30 years, I used to work here
It was never the warmest of buildings at the best of times, without the heating breaking down.
I have worked in offices where people have routinely used hot water bottles to keep warm, but the overall temperature was above the legal minimum. DVLA temperature is below this level.
I can understand staff's concerns not only about the cold but also the lack of hot water to wash their hands, especially due to the high number of Covid cases. It must be really miserable.
Having endured working in an office like that with no heating or hot water I can sympathise with them! This was at worst of winter two years ago. Luckily the building has been competed gutted and rebuilt ready for us to move back in January. Lets hope it was worth it. Home working came at the right time for us!
didbygraham I experienced the same in the winter 2020, office boiler kept going on the blink, we were working with woolly hats & coats on,
I bought in a little heater but unless you were sat on it, didn’t really work in large open spaces. My employer should have sent us home but they didn’t!
Personally I thought the problem was being dealt with adequately when I got to this: The DVLA said staff who feel "uncomfortable" can work from another building.
I don't know why this type of thing even reaches the media. (Bad news day presumably) 
davidstockport I initially thought the same, until I realized how many people work there and there is no way they would be able to accommodate them all in other offices, which already have existing staff working there. It will be a bun fight.
I always read the Wales page on the BBC and the stories are more like local news than anything else.
beccatavender I can't understand anyone complaining about not being able to wash hands in hot water, don't they know that for the water to kill any germs etc. it would need to be hot enought to require a trip to A&E after each wash. They need toughening up - it isn't even winter yet
I remember working in a classroom where the heating wasn't working but was 1 degree above the legal limit. It was horrible so I feel for them.
I have tried telling my wife our heating is broken but she if not falling for it. when I worked in an office and the temperature was checked it was always above the legal limit in the one hot spot that was tested in the centre of a glass building.
A pointless story. I have worked in a very, very cold stockroom without any heating and got on with my job. I washed my hands with soap and cold water.
Maybe management should offer an incentive like clear up the backlog and we’ll turn the heating back on.
Lol people moan about anything, stick some more clothes on and gloves. The public are all in uproar but when there is a back log at dvla they all moan. Remember this lot didn’t want to go back after furlough.
Lucky we have global warming accelerating its effect, perhaps in 10 years we will be on the beach to celebrate Christmas and won't have to worry about cold offices.
I've worked in very cold situations quite a few times, outdoor jobs or relatively cold warehouses or factories you dress accordingly except if you need to have bare hands to do your job it prevented you from wearing full gloves.
That building looks depressingly ugly (not that if it was stylish/pretty would change much), but if it's employees behind a computer then they could do it at home where they could use their own blanket (a heated blanket would be great for it) and do their job. I guess remote work isn't an option.
There's a stigma against remote work though most points people make anti-remote just don't hold up.
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