Coronavirus Update

Coronavirus Latest update – 09.12.21

Message from John Clarkson, Head of Conservation

Following the announcement made by the Government on 8th December 2021, we have made adjustments to some of our activities. Please be aware the health and wellbeing of our staff, volunteers, supporters and visitors continues to be our first priority, thank you for your patience during this time. 

We will continue to make sure any updates about coronavirus restrictions or changes are communicated here, so please keep checking our website. Checking online before you visit any of our reserves is the best way to make sure you are not inconvenienced and can follow the appropriate protocols where they are required. 

I would like to thank you for your continued support. We remain incredibly grateful to all our wonderful members, volunteers and supporters; we could not continue our work without you. Together we can build a wilder future for Leicestershire and Rutland.

Stay safe and well

John Clarkson

Head of Conservation

Nature Reserves

Rutland Water Nature Reserve

Rutland Water Nature Reserve remains open. There are procedures in place throughout the reserve to keep visitors, staff and volunteers safe.

Visitor Centres and car parks

• Our visitor centres and car parks are open.
• Face coverings inside the centres are mandatory. 
• Whilst numbers of people are no longer restricted in the centres, we do ask that you are respectful of others and maintain some distance when possible.
• Those attending our Volunteer Training Centre for an activity day or meeting will be asked to provide lateral flow test within the previous 24 hours of their visit to help protect our staff working from this base.
• Hand sanitiser will be available at all visitor centres. 
• There is no longer an obligation to use the COVID Track and Trace system when entering the visitor centres. We will provide a link to the service at our venues for visitors who wish to use them.

Birdwatching Hides

• All birdwatching hides are open to the public with no formal restrictions on numbers. However, wearing face coverings is mandatory. 
• Please be respectful of others with regards to distancing during your visit when possible.
• You may open the hide windows and doors to aid ventilation.

Other reserves

All our other nature reserves remain open to support appropriate and local access to the outdoors. 

How to stay safe and stay wild on our reserves:

1. Please don't gather or block narrow paths and stay on waymarked paths 
2. Take your rubbish home with you
3. Don't start fires or barbeques
4. Be careful of ground-nesting birds 
5. Remember nature reserves are special places for wildlife, take extra care when visiting to cause as little disturbance as possible.
6. Some of our reserves may have grazing livestock on them. If you are visiting with a dog, please make sure it does not go near the livestock and keep it under control at all times
7. Please check Government guidelines and follow the Countryside Code.

Thank you for helping us keep our nature reserves wild! 

In the hopefully rare case that we identify unacceptable anti-sociable behaviour or a potential risk to safety or to wildlife, we may need to close access to some or all of a reserve with less notice than we normally like to give. Therefore, we urge you to please check the website before visiting.

Volunteering

Outdoor volunteering activities are operating as usual with arrangements provided by your regular volunteering lead contact.

The welfare of LRWT volunteers is paramount at this time, so we will only deliver activities where we think it is safe to do so.

In general, they are now operating at normal levels. If you have any queries regarding volunteering please email volunteering@lrwt.org.uk 

Our staff and offices

Most of our staff will continue to work from home, so please be patient with us as we may take a little longer to respond to messages and phone calls. We will be welcoming more staff back into our offices over the coming weeks and months and will provide an update here if things change.

If you have any questions at all, please do not hesitate to get in touch at info@lrwt.org.uk.

From all at LRWT, stay safe and well.