TOWN HALL \ Hebden Bridge

Thank you to all those who came through our doors in our first 2 weeks of re-opening after lockdown to show your support for us: it is greatly appreciated.

We have been really pleased with how well all the COVID-19-safe measures we made worked in practice, and that they were also well received by staff, volunteers, tenants and our building users. I'd like to record my thanks for our staff team's hard work to make all this happen. 

After internal discussions we have concluded that we can now make some adjustments to our initial re-opening arrangements. These adjustments are intended to run until the end of the school holidays (4th September).

We are going to continue the same pattern of opening the Town Hall and the Cafe for everyone: 

• Wednesday to Friday each week - we will be open 8.30am to 4pm (Café closing at 3pm every day)
• Dates: Weds 12th to Fri 14th Aug and then: 19th to 21st August, 26th to 28th August and 2nd to 4th September

We’ll announce our plans for 7th September onwards asap 

Room Hires - we can now take rooms bookings at any other time (not just within our opening hours). These will, of course, be subject to the relevant Government regulations in force at any one time. More information about room bookings is available on our website here: http://hebdenbridgetownhall.org.uk/our-rooms

We also wanted to remind you about our Business Lounge - which has always been aimed at those who are struggling to work from home - more information about our available Business Packages is here: http://hebdenbridgetownhall.org.uk/business-packages

We are allocating more space to our Business Associates offer so we can help more people.

You can also ring us on: 01422 417300 for more information about either of these packages.

Finally, we wanted to re-iterate what we are doing to make the Town Hall a safe space for everyone. We have 6 key messages:

• Face coverings are now required in communal spaces (this is updated to account for the new regulations here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/31-july-announcement#face-coverings )
• Please sign in at reception or at the Café (to help us support NHS Test and Trace)
• Please wash your hands & make regular use of the hand sanitisers
• Please observe social distancing (currently 2m)
• Our toilets are prioritised for café users, tenants and their clients and room hirers
• Going upstairs? Take the lift up and the stairs down (where possible) to encourage one-way flow

When you visit you will also find more specific information about our Cafe and the toilets as well as guidance for building users.

As mentioned in my first blog post about re-opening back on the 6th July, the Town Hall is a complex site which supports multiple functions. This adds to the complexity of our re-opening process and our ongoing work to make the Town Hall safe. We have done what we think works for the Town Hall and for the community in which we operate: we hope you agree.

We would also like to remind everyone that we are all still getting used to new patterns of working: please be patient.

In future blog posts we'll update on our next phase of opening plans beyond 4th September 8th August.