Reopening our business - Gillbank Cottage

Our commitment to you

The safety, wellbeing and security of our guests, our team members, and the public is a high priority for us at Gill Bank Cottage.

Our Hygiene and Health Commitment

Hygiene and cleanliness are high priority standards for us and our guests. Since the Covid-19 outbreak we’ve taken additional steps to ensure the safety of our guests and our team members. Our health and safety measures are designed to address a wide range of viruses, including Covid-19 and include everything from handwashing hygiene and cleaning specifications to bedrooms and common areas.

Some of the specific steps we have taken:

Guest health reminders: We are contacting all guests 72 hours before their arrival to ask them to confirm that they are symptom-free with no fever, no continuous dry cough, not within a self-isolating time period due to recent arrival from overseas or from notified potential exposure to Covid-19 positive person. We have adopted the most flexible re-booking and refund policy available on the TripAdvisor platform to encourage all guests to consider their own health and that of others ahead of any financial concerns.
Time between bookings: We are aiming to allow up to 72 hours between guests’ bookings. Where this is not possible, we have removed same day changeovers to allow at least a day between booking. By airing the property fully with open doors and windows and extensive cleaning protocols any potential viruses in the cottage environment should be cleared between visits. Covid-19 can only exist on some surfaces for a few hours at most and in laboratory conditions for a 2-3 days at most. Therefore, allowing time between bookings, allowing fresh air through the property and applying strict cleaning protocols should remove any potential viruses in the property.
Hand Hygiene: Proper and frequent handwashing is vital to fighting the spread of viruses and bacteria. We regularly remind our team members, including our housekeeping team and external contractors, of the importance of regular and effective handwashing for cleanliness and the maintenance of their own health and that of our guests. In addition to anti-bacterial soap provided within the property for guests and team members, we encourage alcohol gel use on entry and exit from the property. Team members cleaning the property will wear gloves during housekeeping to avoid any cross-contamination.
Bedrooms: we are using cleaning and disinfecting protocols to clean rooms after guests depart and before the next guests arrive. We are paying particular attention to high touch items including remote controls, telephones, light switches, door handles, and window handles. We will remove certain items from rooms that cannot be easily disinfected between guest visits. Once cleaned, bedrooms will not be accessed further. As it is an older property, this may mean that some spider webs may form for which we apologise.
Housekeeping: In addition to hand hygiene reminders, our housekeepers will wear masks and gloves for all preparation between guest visits. They will wear either single use, disposable gloves and masks, or fully decontaminated reusable masks. We are increasing our use of single use disposable anti-microbial wipes: Clinell universal wipes which are effective against coronavirus in 60 seconds and are used in most UK hospitals to clean non-porous materials such as plastics, metals, porcelains, and glass. Our waste bin is now kept in our small parking space approximately 100 metres up the hill from Boot (on the right) to prevent any cross-contamination from visitors to Boot who opportunistically have used the bin for waste disposal in the past. The bin will continue to be put out for collection on Thursday night for a Friday morning collection, after which it will be returned to the parking area.

Some of the steps we took prior to the recent restrictions:

Environmental and cleanliness changes: We recently installed high hygiene shower gel and shampoo dispensers in our bathrooms. This reduced the environment impact of small shower gel and shampoo bottles and the waste involved.
Linen: Our linen including towels and bed linens are managed by Shortridge, a local firm, with all used linen washed and sanitised in their high temperature cleaning machines. We would ask guests to assist us by removing all bed linen and towels at the end of the stay and placing them in the provided linen bags. This will remove the additional exposure to our team members as they undertake the housekeeping between guests and allow them to safely handle used linen in a safer manner.
Damp-proofing, insulation, and fittings repair and replacement: Parts of the property are over 350 years old, so we are constantly repair and replacing elements of the property to keep it fit for use. Over the last year, we’ve re-insulated and damp proofed both the upstairs en-suite shower room, the upstairs family bathroom, the downstairs bathroom, and the downstairs bedroom to try to eliminate damp that inevitably gets into the property from outside and from condensation from baths and showers within the property. We have a dehumidifier on continuously in the downstairs “boot room” to draw out the damp from the property and keep moisture at bay. A new dishwasher and fridge/freezer have been installed in the kitchen.
Wi-Fi: The Wi-Fi connections throughout the property should be more consistent now that we’ve installed three additional Wireless Access Points. The single Wi-Fi router struggled to get a signal through the very thick Lakeland stone walls. The overall speed isn’t as high as we would like but we are restricted by what is available by a property surrounded by National Trust farmland.

For more information about any of these points please contact bookings@gillbankcottage.com