High Life Highland paves the way to welcome back customers post-lockdown
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High Life Highland (HLH) is pleased that the pre-emptive work staff have been undertaking during the Covid-19 lockdown is very much in line with the Scottish Government’s route map for emerging from the crisis.
A spokeswoman for the organisation said it means no time will be lost as preparations are made for welcoming customers back to its locations at the appropriate moment.
The charity closed the doors to all its premises – including sports centres and libraries – in line with government guidelines in March.
With the exception of a handful of venues hosting Highland Council’s community hubs, all locations have remained closed and more than 1300 HLH staff have been furloughed.
HLH chief executive Steve Walsh said: “Over the past number of weeks, we have had a team of our senior staff working to identify ways in which we think we will be able to welcome our many customers back to our locations when the government restrictions are relaxed or removed.
“The Scottish Government’s route map now offers clarity in terms of the national direction of travel in allowing businesses and organisations such as HLH to return as close to business-as-usual as we can.
“The vast majority of services operated by HLH would appear to fall into phase three, therefore allowing us additional time to do what we can to prepare our sites for the necessary social distancing and increased hygiene requirements that will be put in place in line with the government guidance.
“In the meantime, HLH is continuing to develop, improve and increase its online offering across all our services in ways that we hope will be helping individuals and families both physically and mentally as well as supporting parents and carers with resources for home schooling.
“During the past few weeks we have been keeping our customers and members up-to-date with developments and we will continue to do this as we move through the phases enabling us to re-open some of our locations in line with the guidance.
“Everyone at High Life Highland is extremely grateful for all the very positive communications of support received [from customers].
“We would also wish to thank those who have been able to continue contributing their monthly subscriptions in order to allow the ongoing developments during lockdown while we get ourselves prepared and into a position to re-open our sites in line with the published route map.
“Prior to the pandemic, it was clear that many people didn’t realise High Life Highland is a charity registered in Scotland dependent on members and donations to support delivery of all our services. We are delighted that more customers and public seem to be aware of this now. Because of this awareness, we are thankful that many of those members are coming back asking to reinstate their full or a proportion of their monthly Highlife subscription to support the charity at this time.
“And although we have always had the ability to make donations online – we have now made the function much more prominent on our website – and again, we are grateful to those customers and members making use of this online giving feature."
