Border police patrols double after travel ban
●Chief constable responds to Sturgeon’s tighter restrictions but rules out checkpoints or roadblocks
Police Scotland is doubling its presence along the Border with England after First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced tight er corona virus restrictions.
Chief Constable lain Livingstone said "highly visible patrols" on roads will be used to “deter anyone who night be considering breaching the coronavirus travel restrictions”.
Ms Sturgeon announced severe lock down measures for Scotland on Saturday in light of rising numbers of coronavirus cases caused by a new variant that UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock has warned is "getting out of control”.
The First Minister’ s me asures included a “strict travel ban” preventing travel to or from other parts
of the UK, which was put in place last month but was due to be removed over Christmas. Some exceptions to the ban are allowed for essential purposes.
Mr Livingstone said it would not be “appropriate or proportionate for officers to establish checkpoints or roadblocks to simply enforce travel restrictions”.
But he added: “Today, I have authorised the doubling of our operational presence in the Border areas of Scotland.
“These highly visible patrols will be proactively deployed on our road networks to continue our operational activity to ensure drivers and vehicles are in a fit condition to drive.
“The patrols will also deter anyone who night be considering breaching the coronavirus travel restrictions.”
He said he expects roads to be “quieter than usual over the corning days.
“We have been clear throughout this public health crisis that your police service is here to support our collective effort to combat coronavirus.
“Though the rules have changed often and, at times, quickly, officers and staff will continue with common sense, empathy and discretion to work with our fellow citizens to help keep everyone safe. It is the consent of the public from which policing in Scotland draws its legitimacy.
“As our communities expect, where officers encounter wilful, persistent or flag rant breaches we will act decisively to enforce the law.”
However, John Lamont, Scottish Conservative MP for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk, said: “The Scottish Government and Police Scotland need to ensure clarity around travel restrictions to avoid any public misunderstanding.
“Clearly this virus does not respect borders but a range of exemptions have always been in place to allow safe and necessary travel for valid reasons, and we need to know if that has changed.”
British Transport Police have also boosted the number of officers at stations across the UK'S rail network.
Assistant Chief Con stable Sean O' Callaghan said :" As has been the case throughout the pandemic, officers will be supporting rail staff through high-visibility patrols across England, Scotland and Wales, ensuring those on the network are safe."
Meanwhile European countries including the Republic of Ireland, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium yesterday began applying travel bans with the UK because of the more infectious variant.
Mr Hancock warned that tough controls could be in place for months because of the new variant.
Concerns about the rapid spread of the disease were underlined with the publication of the latest official figures showing there had been a further 35,928 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK by 9am yesterday.
Dr Yvonne Doyle, medical director of Public Health England, said :" This sharp and sudden increase is of serious concern." She said most of the new cases were concentrated in London and the South East.
Mr Hancock ac kn owledged that the speed of the changes had leftpeop le feeling" cross, frustrated and in many cases angry ". He said the country was facing an "enormous challenge" after scientists warned the new VUI 202012/01 variant could be up to 70 per cent more transmissible than the original virus. "The new variant is out of control and we need to bring it under control," he told BBC1'S The Andrew M arr Show. "We don' t know how long these measures are going to be in place. It maybe for sometime until we can get the vaccine going ." He said that restrictions on people travelling in and out of the new Tier 4 area of London and the SouthEast were intended to prevent the spread of the new variant to other parts of the UK. However, Welsh health minister Vaughan Gething said it was already present in Wales and was a factor in the rapid rise of cases there.
"The undoubtable truth is this new variant is effectively seeded across the country, so acting now takes account of the fact that this new variant is undoubtedly a factor – we can't say how much of a factor – in the rapid growth in cases across south Wales," he said.
Mr Hancock insisted they had acted" very quickly and decisively" after ministers were told on Friday by scientists on the Government's New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Ner vtag) that the new strain was spreading more quickly.
However, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said the alarm bells had been" ringing for weeks" and called on Prime Minister Boris Johnson to apologise to the country for failing to act sooner.
"It is an act of gross negligence by a Prime Minister who, once again, has been caught behind the curve ," he said.
"At the heart oft hep roblem here is a Prime Minister who simply doesn' t want to be unpopular and therefore won't take the tough decisions that are necessary until he is forced into them at the 11th hour."
The regulations creating a new Tier 4 in England came into force at 7am yesterday and will be laid before Parliament, which is in recess, today.
The announcements prompted a rush to London train stations, with footage posted on social media showing large crowd sat St Pancras waiting to board trains to Leeds. Mr Hancock said such behaviour was" totallyir responsible".