THOUSANDS of pounds of Lottery money has helped popular York attractions reopen after lockdown.

A £50,000 grant The National Lottery Heritage Fund helped prepare Jorvik Viking Centre, Barley Hall and DIG with their re-opening planning, safety measures and communications.

The money has gone towards safety equipment including digital thermometers and thermal cameras to monitor visitors’ temperatures, to sanitising stations and equipment to keep the attractions as safe as possible.

Sarah Maltby, director of attractions, said: “Our attractions all come under the charitable banner of York Archaeological Trust, and the expense of restructuring our attractions so that they would operate with social distancing guidelines, additional safety measures and reduced visitor numbers was considerable, especially have lost three and a half months of admissions revenue across the group.

“We secured a £50,000 grant, which has been spent across the attractions on all the safety measures you see, as well as funding staff costs to completely reconfigure three established attractions to meet ever-changing requirements.”