The Donkey Sanctuary in Sidmouth will remain temporarily closed to visitors despite the lifting of some lock down restrictions from Saturday July 4.

The charity's international headquarters in Sidmouth welcomes around 400,000 visitors every year, and with such a large number congregating on site from across the UK, there is the heightened risk to the charity's staff whose main priority is to care for the resident donkeys.

Faith Burden, Executive Director of Equine Operations at The Donkey Sanctuary said: "Unlike other visitor attractions, we have numerous entry points to our sanctuary, along with areas of very high footfall in the centre of our site, this makes it difficult to safely manage the number of people coming on to the site and to encourage responsible social distancing.

"The safety of our visitors, staff and donkeys is paramount and is an overriding factor in our decision making.

"We are continuing to monitor the situation on a local, regional and national level, and when it is safe to do so, we will re-open our public centres and welcome visitors back to our site."

Although the sanctuary is currently closed, visitors can enjoy a virtual catch up with the resident donkeys by logging onto the charity's webcams, or relive the recent online special event; Sanctuary From Your Sofa.

The Donkey Sanctuary Ivybridge, The Donkey Sanctuary Birmingham, The Donkey Sanctuary Manchester, The Donkey Sanctuary Leeds and The Donkey Sanctuary Belfast also remain temporarily closed to visitors.