A tale of two tiers Community divided by coronavirus rules
BRISTOL, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire began life in the harshest Tier 3 of the Government’s coronavirus restrictions yesterday – but that means a strange set of circumstances on the edge of the city.
In Whitchurch, on the southern edge of the city, half of the suburb is in Bristol’s Tier 3, while the other half, known as Whitchurch Village, is in Tier 2, because it is in Bath and North East Somerset’s council area.
And on Tuesday, on the last day of full lockdown and the eve of the new tier system, that prospect was branded “absolutely ridiculous”, by those living and working on either side of what is suddenly an important new border.
In Whitchurch on Tuesday afternoon, most of the businesses were shut. This part of Bristol has two pubs – the Yeomans and the Maes Knoll, a popular Toby Carvery.
The Yeomans closed in the first lockdown, and then reopened cautiously in the summer.
Evidence of the steps they’d taken, literally, to become ‘Covidsecure’ during that period are still there – the footprints stuck to the path up to the pub door indicating and reminding people to remain 2m distant.
But the sign on the door said it was temporarily closed, and that will remain in place for the foreseeable future – at least until the middle of December.
For the Yeomans is on the Bristol side of the border with Bath and North East Somerset.
A total of 716 metres further south down the A37 is the Maes Knoll pub, a Toby Carvery that draws people from all over South Bristol.
Yesterday, its landlord was inside preparing the Christmas decorations, getting ready to open on Wednesday.
For the Maes Knoll is on the Bath and North East Somerset side of the border, in Tier 2, and so, as a pub which predominantly serves food, he can open to those booking meals.
But there is a catch. Most of the custom for the Maes Knoll is people coming from Bristol, either walking there from the surrounding suburbs of Stockwood, Hengrove and Whitchurch Park.
Under the Government’s tier restrictions, people living in Tier 3 are told to take their tier with them if they were to travel outside that area.
So walking over the border to the Maes Knoll doesn’t mean people from Bristol can go there – they would be breaching coronavirus guidelines if they did.
Quite how that’s going to be enforced, if at all, remains to be seen, and was certainly baffling people in Whitchurch yesterday.
“I think it’s absolutely ridiculous,” said Rosa Consiglio, as she shut up her Caffe Rosa on the Gilda Parade, the main run of shops in Whitchurch.
Gilda Parade, opposite the Yeomans, is in Bristol and Tier 3, so Rosa and her team will be able to do no more than keep going as they are – opening for a limited period just four days a week, for takeaways.
But Rosa lives in nearby Saltford, over the border in Bath and North East Somerset. So while she might be able to go for an after-work meal at the Maes Knoll, her staff who live in Bristol, or the office workers in the neighbouring estate agent who live in Bristol, couldn’t join her.
“I think I might even be allowed to go to the rugby in Bath on Saturday,” she said. “But I can’t open up my cafe here? I couldn’t come to have a meal here on my day off? It’s just ludicrous.
“Why haven’t they thought this through at all? How does coronavirus know the difference between that pub over there and this cafe or that pub over here?
“This is the busiest time of the year for us as well, normally there’s lots of people out and about.
“It’s particularly ridiculous
❝ I might even be allowed to go to the rugby in Bath, but I can’t open up my cafe here? It’s just ludicrous Rosa Consiglio
because we don’t sell alcohol in the cafe here, so they can’t say anyone is going to get drunk and get too close. This is really badly affecting us, and all small businesses, small cafes and restaurants.”
Caffe Rosa has used the space where customers would normally be able to sit inside to create collection points for local good causes – they are collecting toys for a Christmas appeal, and have been told their drop-off point for the Counterslip Foodbank has more donations left it in than the ones in supermarkets.
The border creates two different sets of rules for pubs, restaurants and cafes either side of the line in Whitchurch and all along the edge of the Tier 3 area, but the rule that those in Tier 3 take their tier with them means crossing the road and heading into Bath and North East Somerset makes no difference.
It was a point the Mayor of Bristol Marvin Rees reminded citizens of in an interview on Monday night.
“Wherever you move, you take your tier with you,” he said.
“So if you’re Tier 3, and you go to a tier 2 [area], you are still required to behave in a Tier 3 way.
“And if you come from Tier 2 to Tier 3, you clearly behave in Tier 3. So you’ve got to move up in the restrictions whichever you go.
“We hope that by going along with the guidance, we will find that pathway out of Tier 3.”
Over in the imminently Tier 2 version of Whitchurch, there was confusion. “It creates some really odd situations,” said Jane, who said she lived in Keynsham. “My daughter lives in Bristol, so can’t come out with us for Sunday lunch on Sunday in Keynsham.
“But if she worked at the pub, she could serve us – but not join us at the end of her shift. It just feels like it’s getting a bit ridiculous now.”
The reason for the tier statuses – for the line across the A37 that has split Whitchurch in two more definitely than the difference in who collected the rubbish ever did – is because of the number of people catching coronavirus Covid-19.
The latest figures from the Department for Health and Social Care available on the day lockdown ended, showed the differences in stark terms.
The spot on the A37 where Bristol’s Whitchurch becomes B&NES’ Whitchurch is actually at what is essentially the meeting point for four different statistical areas.
The Government breaks down every bit of the country into smaller chunks, each with around 7,000 people in.
To the north east of that border spot is Stockwood where, on Tuesday morning, the latest figures suggested 38 people had contracted coronavirus in the seven days to November 25, giving that part of Bristol a case rate of 264 cases per 100,000.
To the north was Hengrove, where 44 new cases in seven days gave that suburb one of the highest covid rates in the country, of 486.
To the west is the large estate of Whitchurch Park, which has a case rate of 264, from 18 cases.
But the last bit of Whitchurch that is in North East Somerset, is part of an area where cases are very low.
Only four people contracted coronavirus in this corner of B&NES, and the case rate of just 59 is particularly low compared to case numbers in Bristol.
The tier system is due to be reviewed in two weeks.