After lots of thought, planning and preparation, but without any fanfare or ribbon-cutting, the Trust quietly opened the doors of the Buxton Visitor Centre at the Pump Room on Saturday.
It felt strange to not announce it in advance – it goes against our natural impulse to invite our community and visitors to join us on such an important day. Hopefully, we can make amends by explaining our thinking here.
These have been unparalleled and unsettling times and after being closed for weeks Buxton Crescent Heritage Trust (the charity behind the Pump Room Visitor Centre and forthcoming Buxton Crescent Heritage Experience) have been keen to reopen to the public. Still, we felt that it would be prudent to reopen as cautiously and safely as possible. The safety of our visitors, and our staff are very important to, and so a ‘soft’ opening would allow us to manage capacity, test our COVID-19 procedures (more on these later), and adapt to new ways of using the space.
We’re pleased to say that things went really well, and we’ll continue to open with limited hours from Thursday 9th July. The Buxton Visitor Centre will open on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 10am until 4.30pm and Sundays 10.30am to 4pm.
You’ll be able to visit, admire and learn all about the famous Buxton Pump Room, shop our new range of stunning gifts and books from local suppliers, and even enjoy a socially-distanced coffee to take away.
Of course, not forgetting that our friendly and knowledgeable staff will be on hand with any Buxton and Peak District tourist information queries. Even wearing our face masks, we hope you can tell we are welcoming you with a warm Buxton smile!
COVID-19 Measures we have put in place
To ensure a safe and enjoyable visit, the team have worked hard to make the Visitor Centre in the Pump Room ‘Good to Go’. We’ve developed and implemented a new Risk Assessment which includes introducing the following measures:
We have:
Introduced daily staff health checks (staff will not attend the Visitor Centre if they or anyone in their household exhibit Covid-19 symptoms);
Created more space in the building by moving display units and furniture to edges of the room;
Introduced a maximum capacity of 12 members of the public at any one time.
Installed new screens at the main sales and information desk, to prevent the spread of infection and allow social distancing between staff and visitors;
Increased cleaning and hygiene measures – staff hand washing, providing hand sanitiser to visitors on arrival, and regularly cleaning surfaces;
Introduced signage to help you on your visit, including 2 metre social distancing stickers on the floor;
Closed access to our oral history bench and indoor well.
We ask our visitors:
To follow a one-way system for entry and exit of the building (entering by the Right-hand door, exciting from the left hand door);
Where possible to use face coverings while in the building;
While browsing the shop and visitor information you ‘look with your eyes’ and only touch what you intend to take;
To only use contactless payments if possible.
The 'Good to Go' scheme
Look out for the new green logos dotted around the town – like many others we’ve signed up to the nationwide ‘Good to Go’ scheme. Introduced by Visit England, it’s the new industry standard which provides reassurance that a UK tourism business has worked hard to follow government and industry COVID-19 guidelines, and has a process in place to maintain cleanliness and aid social distancing.
Buxton has a wide range of businesses and visitor attractions that are doing similar work to make the town a great and safe place to visit.
For more information on the scheme please see https://www.visitbritain.org/were-good-go-industry-standard-all-sectors-tourism-industry
If you visited us over the weekend, how was the experience?
What worked well, what could we do to improve, and what would make you more likely to visit us again? If you have any comments or suggestions, please fill out the form below to share them.
Maybe you’ve not visited us yet, but are planning to soon? What could we be doing to make sure you have a great visitor experience?
All feedback will be kept anonymous, and only ever used internally for our own evaluation.
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