Coronavirus: People urged to maintain social distancing at parks and sites
Following reports of people breaking Government rules, Shropshire Council is urging you to maintain social distancing when you’re outside and to follow Government guidelines at all times.
Our number one priority is to protect our local communities, staff and visitors, but we need everyone to behave responsibly for this to happen.
Although Government guidelines permit residents in England to travel to exercise, we urge you to stay local so we can limit the number of people at our parks and sites.
If you do visit one of our sites, you must follow the signage. This will help ensure that excessive numbers of people are not passing through gates, minimising possible contact with other people, and reducing the number of people touching latches.
These sites will still be here for you to visit when restrictions are lifted.
Lezley Picton, Shropshire Council’s Cabinet member for culture, leisure, waste and communications, said:
“While I’m sure the majority of people have been maintaining social distancing and behaving responsibly, I am extremely disappointed at reports that so many people have been unashamedly breaking Government guidelines.
“These rules are in place to protect people. If not yourself, please think about other visitors, our staff and people in the local community. The chances are that all of us will know someone who is vulnerable. By breaking social distancing rules you could be endangering them, so please stop and consider how your actions will impact others.
“Although our car parks are open, we strongly encourage you to exercise locally to help us manage the number of people visiting our parks and sites and to protect everyone.
“If you do travel to one of our sites, you must behave responsibly. Anyone seen breaking the Government rules will be reported to the police.”
If you do choose to travel to exercise at one of our sites, we strongly recommend that you plan your visit and research the many sites that are available. This will help to avoid everyone visiting our most popular sites at the same time, and make your time exercising safer.
When planning to travel, please remember that full lockdown restrictions are still in place in other parts of the UK. Please respect these.
You must maintain social distancing and stay two metres apart from anyone that is not from your household, and this will make this much easier.
Visitor centres, cafés, play areas and toilets at all of our sites will remain closed until further notice to protect staff and visitors.
Barbeques are also not permitted at any of our countryside sites, due to the increased fire risk, to avoid putting our emergency services under unnecessary added pressure.
If you or a member of your household has symptoms of COVID-19, you must stay at home and not visit any of our sites.
For more information, visit Shropshire’s Great Outdoors website.
Useful links
Shropshire Council: http://www.shropshire.gov.uk/coronavirus/
UK Government: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-outbreak-faqs-what-you-can-and-cant-do
Public Health England: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/public-health-england
