World Horse Welfare says that, ‘after careful consideration’, it has reluctantly decided to keep its Visitor Centres closed to the public until February next year.
This decision affects all four of its Rescue and Rehoming Centres in Norfolk, Somerset, Lancashire and Aberdeenshire.
Roly Owers, the charity’s CEO, said: “We so very much want to be able to welcome everyone back, but we need to put the safety of our staff and the public first. While we love having visitors on site, without doubt this adds additional risk in terms of keeping our centres ‘covid-secure.
“The protective measures we would need to put in place would also inevitably involve taking valuable time from the yard and Visitor Centre staff to ensure measures were being followed.
REHOMING
“As we have recently been able to start rehoming our horses again, our yard staff are busy once more with rehabilitation work. The charity’s priority over the coming months has to be the rehabilitation and rehoming of our horses as each horse that is rehomed makes a space available for another animal in need.
“With all four farms currently at full capacity, making space available for the large number of welfare cases expected later in the year is vital.”
Another challenge is that the measures needed to ensure social distancing and high levels of biosecurity would limit the number of visitors that could be welcomed at any one time and, when balanced against the additional costs, would make opening far less viable.
