TRAVELLERS HOLED UP IN HOTELS PROTEST USING SIGNS PRESSED AGAINST WINDOWS
HOUNSLOW-BORN SINGER TASTES CHART SUCCESS
TRAVELLERS staying in a quarantine hotel near London’s Heathrow Airport expressed their dismay with handmade signs, as they entered into a mandatory 10-day quarantine.
People staying in the hotel held up signs to the public outside, with one telling the world they had ‘negative’ Covid-19 test results, while another said she had flown to the UK for her mother’s funeral.
From yesterday, people travelling from 33 destinations on the government ‘red list’ now must quarantine for 14 days in a government-sanctioned hotel.
Photos of guests at the Radison Blu Edwardian hotel near Heathrow Airport showed people waving, signalling a thumbs down and holding up handwritten signs at their windows.
One woman held up a sign reading, “Our results are negative for COVID19.”
A second woman’s sign said, ““Essential travel. My mother’s funeral. Why made to pay £1750?”
A third person’s message simply said, “HELP.”
The new photos come after a couple staying at the same hotel said they felt like ‘prisoners with a nice bed.’
Married couple Wagner and Elaine Araujo arrived in the UK yesterday after visiting sick family members in Brazil.
The couple said they understood why the quarantining is necessary, but questioned the price tag of £2,400 for the two of them.
The new rules came into force at 4am yesterday, reports the BBC .
Heathrow and Gatwick are two of five airports in England where people requiring hotel quarantine can enter the UK, and Heathrow is expected to receive the largest number of passengers.
The ‘red list’ of high-risk countries includes Portugal, Brazil and South Africa, and the new rules apply to any arrivals who have been in one of those 33 countries in the past 10 days.
Quarantine arrangements must be booked online using a government portal before travel commences.
The new rules require passengers to have a negative Covid-19 test result in the 72 hours prior to their flight, as well as quarantining for 10 days upon their arrival in the UK.
Travellers then receive a further two NHS Test and Trace Covid tests - one on day two and one on day eight of quarantine – and, if either comes up positive, they will be required to stay longer.
The policy was announced late last month in response to the emergence of new variants of the novel coronavirus that are more resistant to existing vaccines.
The cost of the 10-day quarantine stands at £1,750 per person, including the hotel stay, transport, and testing.
The additional bill for an extra adult or a child aged over 12 is £650, and £325 for a child aged five to 12.
FEBRUARY 14 is not everyone’s favourite day of the year, which could be why a former X Factor contestant’s “cheeky little anti-Valentine’s Day song” has stormed the charts.
Talia Dean made her name on the 2017 edition of the reality show and has spent the intervening years releasing her own music independently.
The 34-year-old, who grew up in Hounslow, is part of the band Kings Daughters, whose song The Devil I Know has reached the top of the UK and US iTunes Blues charts since its release.
When we spoke to Talia, she sounds exhausted having spent the early hours of the morning conducting media interviews in the USA.
She told us the astonishing success of the single had surprised everyone.
She said: “We’re a female force really – we have a great mentor in Queen’s Brian May and we’re just powering through life. It’s a cheeky little anti-Valentine’s Day song we thought we’d release.
“It blew up – I think this is day five of it being top of the blues charts.
“When I first saw it I thought that’ll be there for an hour or two, but it’s stayed put.
“Its real instruments and real music. We’re an independent group which makes the success even more amazing. I’m still quite shocked to be honest.”
As a Hounslow girl, Talia feels great pride in her west London roots.
She says she feels privileged to come from any area with has produced some legends of music.
She said: “I grew up in Hounslow, I went to Heston School, and my whole background is the little girl from Redwood Estate.
“The irony is I feel like I’m walking in the footsteps of other great musicians that have come from there.
“I went to the same college as Freddie Mercury and Brian May for example – it’s quite spooky but it’s nice as well.
“Hounslow gets frowned upon but there’s a massive music scene there, people don’t know how talented people are in the area. There’s something in the water in Hounslow.”
Before her music career, Miss Dean worked as a VIP concierge at Heathrow airport.
While in her role, she met many celebrities, including Brian May.
She said his influence had guided her career while she looked after her young son.
She said: “People think I’m this big rock star but I’m just a full-time mum with a passion who’s driven by a great mentor in Brian May. He’s created a monster in me, he’s such a perfectionist and pushes me to improve.
“Recording music during lockdown has been tough, I did the vocals in my wardrobe as the echoes were too much anywhere else.
“I had to distract my son with an iPad and sweets.”
A DEVELOPER has been told to look again at the height of a block of homes for a major housing development in Belgravia, after neighbours on the upmarket street said it would rob them of light.
One resident said the prospect has affected her more than Covid and made her “miserable.”
The controversial plans to knock down five blocks of flats on land bounded by Cundy Street, Ebury Street and Pimlico Road and replace them with new blocks, together with shops, a cinema and a new playground in Ebury Square, was deferred by Westminster Council’s planning committee.
The scheme includes 93 affordable homes and 70 for sale along with homes for up to 170 over-65s in a care home or assisted living.
The planning committee said it was likely to approve the rest of the scheme if developers Grosvenor Estate Belgravia would cut one storey from the 25m building, known as A1, earmarked for senior living.
Committee chairman Robert Rigby said there are a lot of “public benefits” from the scheme and homes would be bigger, but said the loss of light for some neighbours was “extensive”.
The scheme would see the demolition of Kylestrome House, Lochmore House, Laxford House, Stack House, Walden House and the felling of 69 trees. It would all be replaced with new blocks of five to 11 storeys.
However, neighbours said the light problems would come from a four-storey block with a two-storey mansard roof offering assisted living homes for the over-65s. Ironically, it is not the highest building in the scheme.
Residents commissioned a light impact report which found that it would impact on their sunlight and daylight, with one home in Mozart
Terrace standing to lose nearly 75% of its daylight.
One of the houses is where Mozart wrote his first symphony aged eight when his family were living there in 1764. It was on the market last year for £7.5 million.
Dame Sue Tinson told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that her Georgian home of 21 years would be badly affected.
“This has been extremely upsetting,” said the former editor of ITN’s News at Ten. “It makes me feel miserable. I have lost a lot of sleep over the last few months about it. It has impacted my life more than Covid.”
A report said she would lose 100% of her sunlight in winter, and up to 75% of daylight and sunlight overall.
“Everybody needs light – it’s important for our mental health,” she said.
Belgravia Residents Association chairman James Wright said: “If one floor were removed from the building opposite it would remove all residents’ objections.”
Grosvenor said removing the floor would mean a loss of six-and-a-half flats, or the equivalent of 15 affordable homes.
“To sacrifice a historical street for six-and-a-half apartments seems extraordinary,” added Mr Wright.
Ward councillor Andrea Mann (Labour) urged the council to consider deferral.
“It will dramatically change the area. There is no second chance to get it right,” she said.
Councillors said overall they thought the scheme was good but voted to defer.
Committee member Louise Hyams (Saint James, Con), said: “To think residents are going to have their lives blighted is a sacrifice too much.”
Anna Bond, the executive director of development for Grosvenor Britain and Ireland said over the past two years the team has listened to residents and neighbours and has attended public meetings. Some residents set up a campaign group opposing the plan.
She said “It’s a genuine mix that better meets the needs of people living in Westminster today.”