Lancashire Police step up patrols for Euros this weekend
Preston's Flag Market will host hundreds of people at its fan zone to watch England's opening matches on a giant screen
Football fans in Lancashire are being urged to stick to the rules and stay safe as England kicks off at the Euros this weekend.
People have been advised not to meet indoors and keep travel in and out of the area to a minimum to tackle the spread of the variant.
Four out of five areas with the biggest week on week rises in covid cases are in Lancashire with South Ribble, Burnley, Blackburn with Darwen and Ribble Valley.
Despite the new measures, hundreds are expected to show their support at a fan zone that's been set up at Preston's Flag Market.
Chief Inspector Mark Morley, from Lancashire Police, said: "You will see a visible presence of police officers certainly around the town centres and the city centres.
"We are running the operation in Preston, we will have additional officers around licensed premises as well, making sure that everybody's being sensible, behaving in the way we expect them to behave for such a large event.
"There may be a small minority that we have to deal with that step out of line that cause anti-social behaviour or hopefully not but if there's any violence as a result of that then my assurance is there will be police officers present we will be able to deal with it and we'll deal with any consequences as a result."