Dear Guests and Friends

We, at Urban Village Pubs, firstly wanted to thank you all for your continued support throughout what has been, a very difficult last 17 months, for everyone, – customers, our teams, and the company. Without your continued support this period of time would have moved from very challenging to disastrous. So, thank you.

During this time, we have tried to operate in the right way. We have managed to keep the vast majority of our teams together, to keep our people and our customers engaged, and to raise money for the NHS Together Charity and local food banks through operating our takeaway and delivery services, during the first lockdown on a non profit basis, and from some generous donations from some of our customers. All our teams have also put huge amounts of work into ensuring that our pubs have all operated in a very Covid Secure way, to ensure that our guests and teams alike, were confident and safe, whilst still being able to deliver exceptional service and great food and drink.

As you are aware this weeks’ sees the formal removing of all legal requirements for social distancing, and enforced measures, relating to covid safety. As you probably also know, there are still many challenges for our industry, including 1) the huge amount of people being currently asked to self-isolate, 2) the difficulties in recruiting people, not only for our teams, but also for companies that supply and deliver to our pubs, 3) The increases in infection rates amongst the under 30’s from the Delta variant. All of the above, combine to mean, that although we welcome the removal of the mandatory restrictions, many of which appear to serve no purpose, we do feel that it is pragmatic at this time to phase the removal of some of these measures. To this end we wanted to share with you how we intend to continue to operate our pubs over the next few weeks. We hope that you will find this approach both sensible and proportionate. We also hope that our openness will demonstrate our commitment to continuing to do the right thing, and that you will be understanding if in the future, we need to take measures such as reducing our menus or times they are available, or our opening hours. Any changes will be temporary whilst we continue to navigate the current challenges.

Please find below the Covid-secure measures that we intend to keep in place for the next few weeks. We, of course will keep these measures under regular review.

1. Our staff will continue to wear facemasks (unless exempt) for the immediate future.
2. We will encourage all our customers, again unless exempt, to wear a facemask when inside and moving around the pub or going to the bar. Otherwise, the wearing of masks is entirely voluntary.
3. All customers will be asked to sanitize their hands on arrival at one of our pubs.
4.  The NHS Track and Trace QR code will be available at all of our pubs, but it will not any longer be mandatory to “check in”
5. We will no longer be taking the temperature of all guests on arrival.
6. Our teams will continue to take Lateral Flow Tests a minimum of 2 times per week, and have temperature checks before each shift.
7. We will reduce the number of screens around the pubs, but some will remain to ensure safety in busy areas, including some Perspex screens on the bars.
8. Enhanced Covid cleaning and sanitizing practices will remain in place.
9. Customers are welcome to resume ordering food and drink from the bar, or continue to use the app, or speak to our floor team. However, we ask for the time being that people do not remain and drink at the bar, in order to avoid crowding in these areas.
10. We will continue to have a zero-tolerance approach to any individuals who are not supportive towards creating a relaxed but covid safe environment.

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter, and thank you all for your continued support and custom.

From
Carl Elliot – The Village, Walthamstow, Rodney Watson – The Southsea Village,
Ned Clarke – The Walton Village, Steve Carthy – The Mayflower Village,
Brennan Joyce – The Guildhall Village, Les and Dee Strettle – The Watling Street Village,
Jordan Probert – The Kings Head and Bell, Anthony Walker – The Rookwood Village
Ian Grundy and Gavin Drew – Founders
Steve Hipgrave – Operations Director