An update on visitor facilities at Burton Mere Wetlands

Published: 26 Mar 2025
Topic: Burton Mere Wetlands

To ensure our longer-term sustainability, the RSPB has been reviewing its operations across the UK so that everything we do aligns to our charitable and strategic aims and delivers the most impact for nature possible, within the resource we have. We focus on what we do best and where we can do this most effectively, with the resources available to us.   

Our most recent challenge has been the global and domestic financial pressures of the past two years which have had an ongoing impact; not only on our finances, but also on the finances of our partners, members, and supporters, who are so crucial to helping us save nature.   

We have looked across the organisation for improvements and efficiencies – from how we do our work to where we buy the things we need to do it. This has included a review of the retail, cafe and visitor experience offer on our nature reserves across the organisation.   

The review has included looking at how we run our cafes, and the food and drink we sell, and has identified some changes which we are now implementing. We believe that these changes will help the RSPB to remain more financially stable, to deliver for nature in the long term.   

As part of this, we have created a new menu for Burton Mere and all our other reserves with cafes, working with suppliers we trust and who understand our values. This will include buying in more food items which will enable us to be more consistent and compliant across all our sites around calories, allergens and labelling, to keep our customers informed. It is also more economical as we can order at scale. Our café teams across the UK are busy and do a fantastic job. Buying food items in helps us to manage their time better. 

As part of this operational review, eight roles from Burton Mere’s café and visitor operations were revised, applications were first invited from internal candidates affected by the review across the organisation, as a priority. Through this process, two roles were filled, leaving six positions vacant. This has led to a temporary period of short staffing at the reserve while we go through this important process. This has meant we have needed to temporarily close the cafe, and reduce the opening times of the visitor centre, which we recognise is disappointing and frustrating for visitors.  

However, external recruitment is now underway for the remaining roles, and we are hopeful that they will be filled before long. We are confident that once this process is completed and new staff have undergone training and induction, the visitor centre and cafe will be able to return to more regular opening times.    

In the meantime, the reserve, trails, hides and car park are open daily. Trail and reserve information leaflets are available to pick up on arrival and the sightings board includes an up-to-date list of sightings. Please add to this if you see something that isn’t already listed. Now that it’s spring, we are expecting many more new arrivals. The first Chiffchaffs have been heard on the reserve and Avocet numbers are starting to build.  

Burton Mere Wetlands is part of the Dee Estuary which is internationally important for over-wintering wading birds and wildfowl and supports over 150,000 birds each year.  It is also one of the most important places nationally for breeding Redshanks and supports large numbers of breeding Avocets and Lapwings too, all of which are easily seen at Burton Mere Wetlands throughout the spring and summer.  Burton Mere Wetlands remains a vitally important reserve to the RSPB and we thank our staff, volunteers and visitors for their patience and look forward to returning to a more regular service before too long.