COVENTRY MESSAGE BOARD

Non-essential shops in the city will close on Tuesday and schools will shut from Thursday



Leicester will go back into lockdown while the rest of the country celebrates pubs and restaurants reopening after a spike in local cases, it was announced today.

Non-essential shops in the city will shut again tomorrow and schools will close from Thursday, Health Secretary Matt Hancock told the House of Commons this evening.

People living in Leicester are being urged to "stay at home as much as they can" and the nationwide easing of lockdown planned for 4 July does not apply to them, he said.

This means pubs, restaurants, hotels and hairdressers preparing to reopen will have to delay their plans.

Travel in and out of the city should be avoided unless absolutely necessary.

The relaxation of rules for people who are shielding in the area - planned for 6 July - cannot go ahead either, Mr Hancock said.

Mr Hancock said the measures will be reviewed in two weeks and will not be in place "any longer than necessary".

They will not only apply to the city of Leicester but also to the surrounding area, he added.

The health secretary said: "Having taken clinical advice on the actions necessary and discussed them with the local team in Leicester and Leicestershire, we have made some difficult but important decisions.

Leicester City's home clash v Crystal Palace given green light amid local lockdown



Leicester City’s home clash against Crystal Palace will go ahead, Health Secretary Matt Hancock has said.

The city and areas of the county have been placed in lockdown for a further two weeks, with non-essential shops to close from today and residents advised to avoid non-essential travel.

However, the reintroduction of measures will not affect City's scheduled fixture against Palace at the King Power Stadium this Saturday, the Health Secretary told Sky News. It is understood the club, the safety advisory group, the Premier League, and the relevant authorities are holding conversations on Tuesday afternoon to confirm how the lockdown affects City, their fixtures, and their training sessions.

On Monday night, after his side’s defeat to Burnley, Crystal Palace boss Roy Hodgson had said he would be happy to play the match at a neutral venue if necessary.

“I am perfectly happy to let the Premier League take care of that,” he said. “I am certain they will tell us where and when the game should be played.

“I am certain if they can't play at Leicester, they will find an alternative venue and we are happy to go up and play against Leicester City wherever the Premier League tells us to play.”

The club will heed government guidance and are expected to seek further clarification as to how it might affect training and day-to-day running of the club.

Speaking earlier on Monday, before the local lockdown was confirmed, City boss Brendan Rodgers said the club would be agile to the situation, and believes the King Power Stadium is a “very safe environment”.

“I always said we'll react accordingly,” he said. “We have to have agility in this period.

“I think at this moment in time we're in the safest place to be, in terms of our work. The stadium also, it's a very safe environment for the games to be in. We'll just keep walking until we're told otherwise.”

As well as Palace, City have two other home fixtures before the end of the season, taking on Sheffield United in the week beginning Monday, July 13, before concluding the campaign against Manchester United on Sunday, July 26.

Stay away from Skegness, county bosses tell people from lockdown Leicester



Pub licensees and hotel owners in Skegness and Mablethorpe are being asked to be on their guard for daytrippers and holidaymakers from lockdown Leicester.

Authorities in Lincolnshire are worried visitors may leave Leicester behind and seek escape in the county’s coastal resorts, reports LincolnshireLive.

The alert comes as Leicester becomes the first in the UK to have a local lockdown following a surge of more than 900 new coronavirus cases in the last two weeks.

Schools in the area will close from Thursday, non-essential retail will also shut and only essential travel in and out of the city will be permitted.

Leicester is a key city for bringing in tourists to the Lincolnshire coast, with many residents travelling there for breaks away or a day out.

And with caravan parks and hotels due to open on July 4, people are being asked to be alert to families wanting to get away to break the lockdown boredom.

Those living in the affected areas of Leicester are being told they will be welcome to the Lincolnshire coast later in the year, when it is safe to do so.

Tony McGinty, assistant director of Public Health Lincolnshire, told BBC Radio Lincolnshire: “We are worried.

"There is obviously concern that if you have a lockdown in a smallish area like Leicester then people will travel out to take advantage of relaxation everywhere else.

“We are considering as a team locally and with local authorities today what measures we might need to put in place to help that.

“On the flip-side, in some cases we have to think of the opening up of tourism in Lincolnshire and how we can make it safe for those areas to open up in general.

“We are expecting people from other places to come.”

He added: “A big share of the responsibility lies with the members of the public to do the responsible things.

“Our appeal to the people of Leicester in their time of trouble would be to consider how they can stop the problem they have there into the surrounding areas.

"We should certainly be alert to people coming in from Leicester, particularly now if we know that is where they have come from, especially into places like caravan parks.

“I think restaurant and pub owners will find that much more difficult to ascertain but may pick that up from the registration forms we are asking them to take for people using them.

“We would want to know if we were seeing significant people coming out of Leicester into other areas to take advantage of the relaxations coming out Lincolnshire.”

Ros Pritchard, director general of the British Holiday and Home Parks Association (BH&HPA), said they will be issuing guidance to caravan operators and encouraging people living in the affected wards within Leicester to not visit the Lincolnshire coast.

Restaurant bans people from Leicester as city goes into local lockdown - and warns it will ID diners



A restaurant popular with diners from Warwickhire has banned customers from Leicester as a result of local lockdown put in place over a rise in coronavirus cases.

Barnacles Restaurant & Bar Bistro, which is based on the A5 in Hinckley just over the border with Warwickshire, has said that it is not taking bookings allowing anyone from the Leicester lockdown area.

The restaurant posted the message on its page on Facebook last night, saying that people will need to bring photographic ID to prove where they are from.

It asks people not to be offended and stresses it is for the safety of staff and fellow diners.

The post reads: "Following last nights Leicester Lockdown announcement we will remain OPEN at this time as we are out of the area and are continuing to take bookings from this Saturday 4th July.

"Following Government advice we are not currently able to take bookings or admit anyone to the Restaurant (for at least the next two weeks) from the Leicester lockdown area. We will keep you updated.

"We will also be asking to see a form of photo ID (showing an address) such as a driving licence. This will need to be produced on arrival in the restaurant to double check that addresses are not within the lockdown area.

"Please ensure you bring your photo ID with you. We know this will cause inconveniences and we apologise, but hope everyone understands.

"(Please don’t be offended) We are doing this to ensure the safety of all of our customers and employees as well as following the guidelines set out by the government.

"We look forward to seeing you all soon and again we are sorry for any inconvenience caused!"

Some Leicester factories stayed open and forced staff to come in, report warns

Allegations come as city begins second lockdown after infection rates increase

Some garment factories in Leicester stayed open as normal throughout the coronavirus crisis and ordered workers to continue to report for duty even when they were sick, a report from a campaign group has claimed.

The findings from Labour Behind the Label includes allegations that workers were forced to work despite high levels of infection in factories and allegations of “furlough fraud”.

After Leicester became the first city in the UK to have a second lockdown imposed on Monday night, experts and community organisers said that the city’s notorious garment manufacturing sector appeared to have played a key part in the disease’s resurgence.

And on Tuesday, testimony compiled by Labour Behind the Label set out what the report’s authors claimed was a “shameful” disregard for worker safety by the factories and the major UK brands operating in Leicester.

One unnamed worker quoted in the report said he had told his employer he was unwell but was told to come in to work anyway – even after testing positive. He was told not to tell any other workers about the result, the report said. In one factory with 80 staff, around 15 had Covid-19 at the same time, another worker told the authors.

Workers in a number of factories told the group that there had been no physical distancing measures in place and that their employers had closed only for a few days, if at all.

The report came as it emerged that Public Health England had found evidence that young men between 20 and 40 who work in the city’s garment factories and food processing plants were major vectors of transmission.

It is understood that the body became so concerned about the surge in cases in Leicester that they sent a team of officials to the city at the weekend to investigate. Analysis of data collected by local health bodies shows that many of those infected recently have been young men aged 20 to 40, often from an Asian background, many of them working in textiles and food.

Leicester’s garment factories have been the subject of concern for years. A report by the parliamentary environmental audit committee last year found that wage exploitation was flourishing in the city and across the sector more broadly. MPs behind the report heard it was an “open secret” that many of the 1,000 or so factories and workshops in the city were paying below the minimum wage.

The mostly immigrant workers, many of whom have limited English, are paid as little as £3 an hour in some cases. A failure to communicate lockdown rules to those communities has also been viewed as playing a part in the resurgence of the virus in Leicester.

Mick Cheema, whose Basic Premier brand has often been highlighted as an ethical clothing manufacturer in the city, said he was aware of “manufacturers who have been operating without a risk assessment in place for covid”.

He added: “Social distancing within those workplaces is not normal. Some have carried on operating as they did before the crisis.”

Priya Thamotheram, head of the Highfields community centre, who has campaigned about factory working conditions for years, said he had no “personal knowledge” of what was happening in factories because he had not been able to go inside. “But what I hear from those who pass by those factories is that workers are going in, and things are continuing apace in those settings,” he told the Guardian.

The Labour Behind the Label report also highlighted “furlough fraud”, including workers being asked to hide payslips so that management could claim more public money and being told to come to work if they wished to be paid furlough money.

Dominique Muller, the author of the Labour Behind the Label report, said substantial new orders for clothing during lockdown were behind the factories staying open, and accused major brands including Boohoo of failing to do enough to monitor conditions at the factories. The report said Boohoo accounted for at least 75% of clothing production in Leicester and called on the company to identify its suppliers so that their practices could be scrutinised.

“Allegations of abuse at many Leicester companies have been reported for years now,” Muller said. “So far, the local and central government have failed to take any meaningful action. Instead they have seemed to focus on immigration raids, which have made vulnerable workers more fearful of speaking out.”

Boohoo said in a statement that it had “fundamentally changed the way that we operate” since coronavirus and that “every decision we have made has had the safety and wellbeing of our people at heart”. It said it was confident that those in its supply chain were operating safely and that it provided free PPE and sanitiser as well as remaining in close contact.

Emphasising its strict code of conduct, it said: “None of our suppliers have been affected at this time and we are pleased that our in-house compliance team have been able to resume their work. Our third-party auditors are also out visiting sites this week.”

As well as problems with factory conditions, others have suggested that the outbreak gained pace among workers in food processing sites around the city and spread quickly in part because of overcrowded housing.

A number of factories in the St Saviours Road area, where much of Leicester’s manufacturing output is based and which is among the worst affected areas of the city, were open on Tuesday. Proprietors and managers complained that they had not been given clear guidance on how they should operate by the council.

Many windows were boarded up or blocked from within, making it difficult to see how many workers were inside. One textile factory manager, who refused to give his name, strongly denied that there had been any misconduct during the lockdown period: “These are untrue claims by people who are never here to tell the good news about Leicester. Everybody here has been very careful.”

Belgium tells Leicester arrivals to quarantine

Leicester has joined a handful of European cities to be placed on the Belgian government's "red-zone" list.

It means anyone arriving in the country who has recently visited Leicester will be told to place themselves in a two-week mandatory quarantine.

It is the only UK city to be included in Belgium's list. The other cities are in Portugal or Spain.

Signs are due to be erected around Brussels Airport telling arriving passengers to inform the authorities if they have been in Leicester during the lockdown.

The Belgian government has also told its own citizens to avoid travelling to the city if possible.