If only they’d trusted us things could have been so different
MAYOR BELIEVES PEOPLE HAVE BECOME WEARY OF THE RESTRICTIONS
MAYOR Sir Peter Soulsby says people in the city have become very weary as it becomes the first place in the country to reach 100 days of local lockdown.
He said: “It was clear that as the rest of the country was being released from lockdown the government was looking to single somewhere out to move in the other direction.
“I believe its intention was to use Leicester as a warning to other parts of the country.
“At the time, there were not good enough testing results to justify why they were picking on Leicester
“At that time the Government would not tell us what the tipping point for putting us into the local lockdown and 100 days later they are still unable to say if there is a tipping point for taking us out.
“With the way the Government is now talking, restrictions are likely to be in place for a considerable time to come.
“The longer they have gone on, the more trouble many people have had understanding them.”
The Government is now seeking to simplify local lockdowns after coming under fire for the contradictions between restrictions in different parts of the country.
It is considering a traffic light system where an area’s infection rate would determine what level of restrictions would be in place.
Sir Peter said Leicester had been a victim of the inconsistency of local lockdowns.
He said: “Other areas have joined us in having localised restrictions but what happened here that has never been replicated elsewhere is that our nonessential retail was shut.
“That put strain on our shops and businesses that has not been experienced elsewhere.
“There has not been the level of Government support for our businesses to reflect the extra pressure they have been under as a result of the extended lockdown.”
Health Secretary Matt Hancock did announce an extra £2.6 million of support one month into the local lockdown but Sir Peter has argued that was only a quarter of the sum needed to keep businesses going.
Since then, numerous restaurants and pubs in the city have closed their doors permanently.
Sir Peter also said the city council and the people of Leicester had been frustrated by the way the Department of Health and Social Care had announced key changes to the rules.
While there was initial close cooperation between the city council and the government, disagreements over access to testing data and political rows over the boundaries of the lockdown area soured the relationship between those making the decisions in Westminster and local public health teams and politicians.
Sir Peter said: “Our experience as a council was that we started to find out important information in the small print of a government press release and I think other councils have also become familiar with being treated this.
“Their communications have been chaotic – but they have got better.
“We did start to get more information about where in the city there was the greatest prevalence of the virus and that did show us the speculation that the outbreak was linked to unregulated workplaces was not correct and that the virus was being transmitted in households and then out in the community.”
When Leicester went into local lockdown the infection rate was 135 cases per 100,000 – a figure that has now been dwarfed in cities such as Liverpool and Manchester – but had fallen to the low 20s at the end of August before it started to rise again last month. The mayor said he remained sceptical of the figures but said the local measures, such as the door-todoor delivery of testing kits to streets where cases of the virus were highest, had helped put Leicester in a position to better resist a second wave compared with other places.
He said: “For me, one of the saddest things about Leicester lockdown is that from the very outset the Government failed to see the enormous resources they had in the people of Leicester and the expertise of the city council. “They centralised their response from testing to decision-making. “If only they had trusted us in the city things could have been so very different.”
I believe the intention was to use Leicester as a warning to other parts of the country
Sir Peter Soulsby