Welcome to Otter Garden Centres

PLEASE READ THIS IMPORTANT INFORMATION BEFORE YOU VISIT OUR GARDEN CENTRES

We understand you may be anxious about visiting retail stores at this time and want to reassure you of the social distancing measures we will have in place in our garden centres. We ask you to respect these guidelines – this is for your safety and the safety of our team members. Any customers not adhering to social distancing may be asked to leave.

Coffee Shops & Restaurants:

• All our coffee shops and restaurants are closed in line with government guidelines. All other retail areas are open, including plants, garden furniture, books and crafts, landscaping, clothing* and home.

Opening Times:

We have extended our late night opening at our two largest garden centres Ottery & Plymouth; we anticipate the evenings to be much quieter so a good time to shop with us.

• Ottery St Mary: Wednesday June 3rd – Friday June 5th 9am – 8pm (late night opening each night). Saturday 9am – 5.30pm. Sunday 10.30am – 4.30pm. Monday 8th & Tuesday 9th June 9am – 5.30pm. Wednesday June 10th – Friday June 12th 9am – 8pm (late night opening each night).
• Plymouth:  Wednesday June 3rd – Friday June 5th 9am – 8pm (late night opening each night). Saturday 9am – 5.30pm. Sunday 10.30am – 4.30pm. Monday 8th & Tuesday 9th June 9am – 5.30pm.
• Lymington, Torbay, Jack’s Patch, Taunton and Wincanton Garden Centres are open with their normal trading hours: Monday – Saturday 9am – 5.30pm, Sunday 10.30am – 4.30pm.
• Please visit Our Centre pages for more information on your nearest Otter Garden Centre.

Social Distancing & Safety Measures:

• We would like to reassure you that the safety of our team members and customers is our biggest priority.
• Customers must respect and adhere to the social distancing guidelines of 2 metres at all times. We have placed 2m markings on the floor to help with queuing at the till points.
• The number of customers in our stores will be limited. We are operating a queuing system at busy times, this may require you to stand in a line outside the store, very similar to the process in place at many grocery stores.
• We encourage customers to shop alone where possible. We will be allowing a maximum of two persons per household and would ask all groups of two persons to remain together whilst shopping.  This is for your safety. We encourage customers not to bring children but appreciate this may not always be possible and will allow one adult and one child. Customers who are accompanied by children are responsible for supervising them at all times, and they too must follow social distancing rules.
• When you arrive: you may find new entrances and exits have been put into place to help keep a safe distance from other customers, signs will be in place to help you identify these.
• We encourage all customers to follow Public Health England guidance on hand-washing. We will be providing hand sanitiser for customer use.
• Where possible please do not touch products unless you intend to purchase them. Team members will be available to provide product information.
• Baskets and trolleys will be available and we are providing facilities for customers to clean and sanitise these between customer use.
• We are asking all customers to please only touch products you intend to purchase, where possible.
• Perspex screens have been installed next to our tills to provide protection, and there will be fewer tills open to ensure social distancing can be maintained, this may result in queues to pay.
• Many of our team members will be wearing PPE, for their safety.
• To help reduce unnecessary contact, we encourage the use of chip and pin card payments and contactless payment when paying for your purchases. The contactless limit is now £45.
• Any customers not adhering to these social distancing measures may be asked to leave.

Toilets

• At this time our toilet facilities are open at all our garden centres, however we would ask that you only use these if essential.

Restrictions that are in place:

• All coffee shops and restaurants remain closed in line with the latest government guidance.
• Our plant information desks will be closed.
• * Clothing department changing rooms are closed. We ask that clothes and shoes/footwear are not tried on. Please speak to any team member for help with clothes or footwear if needed.
• Garden furniture: to ensure we can minimise contact with our display items there may be restrictions in place, please ask a team member for help when you arrive.

Please bear with us whilst we get used to this new way of operating our stores.  Although your shopping experience may feel a little different, we want to try and make it enjoyable and most importantly safe, if you have any concerns during your visit, please speak to any Otter team member.

This guidance may be updated or changed, please check back to see the latest guidance prior to any visit you plan to make.

Thank you for your patience and understanding over the last eight weeks, and for all the lovely messages of support we have received.

We look forward to welcoming you to our garden centres. Whether you are one of our regular customers, or one our many new customers who purchased from Otter for the first time during lockdown, we hope to see you very soon.