Extra police powers needed to stop Covid-19 spread in North Yorkshire
North Yorkshire Police has suggested it needs extra powers to help stop the spread of Covid-19.
Last updated 14th Jan 2021
A police force responsible for an area featuring two national parks and one of the country’s top tourism destinations has suggested it needs extra powers to help stop the spread of Covid-19.
North Yorkshire Police Superintendent Mike Walker said despite the grave situation facing the county and the city of York, where the seven-day infection rate has soared to 670 per 100,000 residents, there continued to be “blatant breaches left, right and centre” of lockdown rules.
A meeting of the North Yorkshire and York Police and Crime Panel heard as the Covid infection rate was now higher in York and North Yorkshire than in many of its surrounding areas, the main message police were trying to get across was not to travel out of the county and city.
Supt Walker highlighted how North Yorkshire and York had been surrounded by areas that were in higher tiers and said there was evidence that people had travelled into the area ahead of infection rates soaring.
The panel’s acting chairman, Councillor Peter Wilkinson, told the meeting Thirsk had seen minibus loads of residents from Middlesbrough, a higher tier area where pubs were closed, visiting the North Yorkshire town’s drinking establishments.
Cllr Wilkinson said it was also very apparent from the amount of traffic on the roads that the latest lockdown was not being taken as seriously as the first lockdown last year and asked the police chief if further action could be taken.
Supt Walker replied that the force had handed out 107 fixed penalty notices to those breaching lockdown rules last weekend and more than 2,000 notices overall, while other forces in the region had issued significantly less.
He said the current rules were “very difficult to police”, saying people were allowed to visit the supermarket as many times as they wished.
Supt Walker said fear over Covid-19 was much higher among the public during the first lockdown.
He said:
“That fear needs to be put back into the public. It’s not ideal that we want to put fear into the communities, but they really need to understand the risk that’s associated to them. It’s sad to see there isn’t as much compliance as last time.”
He said the force and other agencies were compiling evidence to present to national decision-makers about what happens if lockdown and tier rules are left as guidance.
Supt Walker said:
“When we come out of a national lockdown and go back into tiering, we will continue with that message stay in your own tier if it’s guidance that you shouldn’t come out of it. But it’s not helpful for the police that it’s only guidance. We want to persuade whoever it is, the Home Office, the Cabinet Office, public health, whoever it is making the decisions over tiering that it must be stronger to not allow people to travel from high infection rate areas to North Yorkshire and the city of York.
Police, fire and crime commissioner Julia Mulligan said people were suffering from “Covid fatigue”.
She said police chiefs had debated having limits on how far people could travel, similar to the five-mile limit in Scotland, but it was felt it could have an adverse effect on people living in cities.
Mrs Mulligan said:
“We are all feeling very fatigued by this and wanting it to end. We are hopefully in the last phase of the very critical nature of this pandemic with the vaccine coming on stream so we just need to bear with it and be a little bit patient a little bit longer. It is really good to see the way the vaccine is improving morale. We need to capture a bit of that positivity.”