New lockdown restrictions for Salford expected to be announced this evening

Image credit: EU2017EE Estonian Presidency / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)

New lockdown measures will be announced tonight in a move that is expected to see Salford escape the strictest lockdown restrictions.

Greater Manchester is expected to be placed into Tier 2 which would see pubs and restaurants remain open, as well as a ban on all unessential travel.

The country will be subject to a new three-tier lockdown system, which avoids a ‘blanket’ style lockdown and instead looks at the infection rate in individual areas across the country.

Salford sits amongst some of the highest infection rates in the UK, last recorded at 357 cases per 100,000 people*.

Yesterday Salford Mayor Paul Dennett tweeted about a “shambolic” meeting with leaders and has called for a review on the governments financial package to support local people and businesses across this next lockdown.

Following the shambolic meeting with gov. late on Friday & further meetings with Leaders of the North, the @greatermcr has issued the following open letter to gov., highlighting our myriad of concerns with the gov’s current proposals & approach.👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻https://t.co/t7183LdYbU

— SalfordMayor (@salford_mayor) October 11, 2020

In an open letter to Ministers, the Greater Manchester Combined Authority wrote: “It would also run the risk of significant redundancies and multiple business failures. That would cause long-term damage to the already fragile economies of large parts of Northern England and weaken the recovery when it finally comes. It would do the precise opposite of what the Government was elected to do and level down the North.”

This comes after it was announced on Friday that the Furlough support scheme would be dropped from 80% of pay to 67%, with no additional support on offer to those who are self-employed.

Meanwhile Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham called The Daily Telegraph’s headline this morning, ‘Johnson calls last orders for the North’ ,”disgraceful” and “disrespectful”, as he fears for local jobs once again.

The restrictions are thought to come into place this Wednesday, lasting up to a month before being reviewed again.

Areas placed into ‘tier-2’ are expected to retain a ban on households mixing and the use of curfews, but would not go as far as shutting businesses entirely.

The lockdown comes after a massive spike in cases which has been called the ‘second wave’.

*Statistics from Public Health England.

Photo credit: Arno Mikkor