Looking Ahead Post Lockdown

I thought it was time to post an update on our plans to open Character Farm Cottages. I am sure many of you are finding the messages from the government chaotic and confused and this is certainly the case within the Self Catering industry. However it seems to be highly probable that we will be given the green light to open on the 4 July so that is our plan. No doubt along with the necessary permission to open, I am sure we will receive a plethora of additional rules and regulations many of which will fall under the term “good old fashioned common sense”. However we will take these guidelines extremely seriously as ultimately we want our cottages to be as safe an environment as possible for you our guests and indeed our faithful cleaners.

We have already implemented a few changes in advance. Turning around and cleaning 7 cottages on a Friday is a challenge at the best of times. Now with the present threat we naturally wish to be able to spend more time giving the cottages an additional “deep clean”. After much consideration we have decided that we will struggle to achieve this so to create more time we have reduced the capacity in our larger cottages Chestnut and Chelsea by making these available on a one week on, one week off basis. Sadly we had to cancel a number of bookings throughout July, August and September. Those guests have been notified and given a full refund. I would like to thank those people affected for their understanding and appreciate their supportive emails.

Another change will be to check-in/check-out times. Again to give ourselves additional time we would really appreciate your understanding and support by changing the arrival time to 1700 onwards and departing on the Friday morning by 0900. Just to further assist our cleaners we would kindly ask that you strip the beds and put all linen and towels in bags that we will supply.

No doubt there will be more official changes but hopefully these will be aimed more at us the owners rather than you our guests. Obviously if there are any significant changes I will let you all know. As always if you have any concerns please just drop me an email. In the meantime I do hope you all keep well and hopefully look forward to seeing you all later this summer – let’s hope this lovely weather continues.