Our Covid-19 Plan
We will be open for limited browsing from Monday 18 th of May, by appointment only.
In the meantime we continue serving customers over the phone, email, Facebook, and soon on our website. We will continue to provide local delivery and contactless collection for the foreseeable future.
Why? On Monday the government very quietly announced that garden centres could open. We are concerned about how manageable this will be at the peak of the gardening season whilst maintaining everyone’s safety, but we are also keen to allow those who desperately want to get out, and browse our plants, to do so, and do so safely.
We encourage as many people as possible to use our home delivery and contactless collection services where possible. More detail below:
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Lay of the Land’s response to the easing of Covid - 19 restrictions
The Government has announced garden centres will be allowed to re-open from Wednesday 13th May, provided they can satisfy a set of fairly stringent procedures designed to keep staff and customers alike safe, principally the exercising of social distancing rules at all times. Clearly in the height of gardening season this is going to be difficult to manage for any garden centre. For us here it represents a considerable challenge, given the size and layout of our site.
Most of you will be aware that we have never stopped doing business, and never stopped serving our incredibly loyal customers, having transformed ourselves almost overnight from a principally face to face business to an overwhelmingly remote ordering and delivery model. As many people, particularly those in the vulnerable categories, will still not want to venture out we aim to continue this service. This means that serving customers face to face becomes an additional task for an already stretched and short staffed team.
In line with the Government’s phased approach to easing lockdown, we are therefore proposing a phased approach of our own. The first phase of this will be to welcome customers back into the garden centre with effect from Monday 18th May, but on a strictly limited, and card only payment, basis. The guidance from our trade body, after full consultation with the government, suggests so few people would be allowed in our garden centre at the same time, but with staff required to monitor them, that it is easier for us to say customers will only be allowed in alone, and on a one in/one out basis. Therefore we will be operating an appointment only system, with roughly 20 minutes being allowed between appointments. Whilst we will do our best to ensure pre booked appointments start promptly it will still be necessary to ensure previous customers have vacated the premises, and all customers are asked to respect and understand this.
We would dearly love not to have to make these kinds of decisions, but in the face of a completely new and potentially deadly threat, and if we are serious about the health of our customers and our staff, which of course we are, we don’t really have a choice,. Fortunately, you do; you can still order by phone or e mail and either arrange to collect or ask for delivery (modest charges may be applied). You will be able to shop online, click and collect and you will be able to book appointments to come and look for yourselves. Starting from Monday, in the safest environment we can possibly provide for you, Lay of the Land’s phased re-opening begins.
Thank you for your continued support.
The Lay family and team.