Scarborough Borough residents urged to stay home and protect NHS

People in the Borough of Scarborough are being urged to stick to the coronavirus rules after hundreds of fines for indoor gatherings were given out.

Author: Karen LiuPublished 8th Jan 2021
Last updated 8th Jan 2021

People in the Borough of Scarborough are being urged to stick to the coronavirus rules and to stay at home.

It is as police have issued hundreds of fines for indoor gatherings, particularly those hosting or attending parties.

Chief Inspector Rachel Wood, Operations Commander for Scarborough and Ryedale, said:

"This is something that we as the police will robustly enforce because it's a blatant disregard of the rules. Everybody knows now that they shouldn't do that. I appreciate that regulations do change from time to time and people can become confused but I think everybody knows or should know that this isn't allowed.

"North Yorkshire Police now have dedicated, specific officers that are there just for Covid enforcement that are working all the time with high visibility presence; and we will not only be responding to reports of house parties across North Yorkshire, we will be proactively looking for those parties.

"The vast majority of the public have worked really hard to comply with the Government guidance and regulations. So if they're not seeing loved ones, it's not fair anyway that other people are blatantly disregarding it and ignoring the rules. So I would encourage people to feed in any intelligence, information or reports if it's happening live time.

"There's been some comments from some people on social media that feel 'have we not got anything better to do?' Well actually, this is about stopping people from dying. This is about stopping the pressure on the NHS, so what more important work is there to do? And it is the law. So we will enforce around the gatherings.

"We understand that this is the situation where people are at the point where they're fed up and they're missing family and friends. We're all in that position and we feel exactly the same way but we've got to do this. This is the only way that we're going to be able to beat the virus and get life back to normal."

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