Everyone at the Museum is looking forward to welcoming you back. The Museum thrives on life and people being inside. Whether it’s being a bustling flower market with traders buying their stock, or the best museum of urban transport, people should be in the building. We want to see people in the Museum learning about London and how transport has shaped our great city and see our friends enjoying themselves again.
Since we closed, we have not stood still and have been cleaning every part of the Museum and that will continue. Being open non-stop for 13 years makes it difficult to have a real crack at cleaning some areas that might require more attention, so the temporary closure has been a great opportunity to do this work. Glen and Ruben have been working diligently to ensure the place looks great when we all return. Apparently taking 13 years of polish off the floor is a tough task!
We are also busy planning for re-opening and this is throwing up a number of new considerations we have not had to think about before in an operational environment. We have four over-riding key principles we are taking into account in order to welcome you back. These are:
- Numbers – how many visitors can safely visit with social distancing guidelines in place?
- Cleanliness – the Museum has to be safe for staff and our friends who visit
- Social distancing – what is the new visitor experience like?
- Reassurance – achieve the recognised kitemark standard on cleanliness and communicate what we are doing
We will ensure that we have listened to feedback from multiple sources such as the government, public surveys, colleagues from outside attractions who are opening now and retailers, so we can deliver a comfortable and confidant visit for you.
We are also learning from TfL and the measures they are putting on across their network to keep us all safe. We will have enhanced day to day cleaning measures in place and increased cleaning at high touch point areas with high performance disinfectant. On top of this, we are looking in to implementing a sanitising regime every 21 days, where the Museum is cleaned with a surface sanitiser that will kill bacteria for 28 days. We will also look at what other new technology is available, learning daily about what is possible with the goal of ensuring everyone enjoys their visit in a safe environment.
There may also be an exciting opportunity to open the Depot in Acton, so more people can see this Aladdin’s cave. More details on this to come…
We will keep working on getting the building and team ready to deliver on your expectations. We hope to welcome you again soon.