‘If I could do cartwheels I would’

Meurig Jones, location manager of Portmeirion Village in north Wales, can’t wait to open up again

The scenic village of Portmeirion is welcoming visitors back, and staff who work there are eager for it to be busy once again. “When we saw the first trickle of people last month, it was lovely,” says location manager Meurig Jones. “If I could do cartwheels, I would! Portmeirion needs people here. It’s lovely, but it isn’t what it should be without people appreciating it.”

Visitors now queue to enter the village through a new flowered arch which leads to a one-way system and there’s more outdoor dining as well as pods outside the main hotel and a marquee outside the castle.

And staff who work in the local shops, cafes, pubs and restaurants are working hard to keep customers safe. “There’s hand sanitiser outside every shop and we ask people to wear masks indoors – and our numbers are naturally restricted by the size of our car park,” says Meurig.

“All the staff are temperature checked when they come into work, and they’ve all gone on courses about the new regulations and changes to working practices because of Covid. To be fair, they were so happy to come back to work, they’d have embraced any changes!”