Residents ‘feel like lepers’ after local lockdowns, say experts

‘Reduction in travel will further depress local finances, though reduced business takings and taxes’

LOCAL lockdowns could stigmatise towns, drive away visitors and damage property prices, government advisers have warned.

The Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviours (SPI-B), a subgroup of Sage, wrote a report in July arguing that long-term economic decline could be an unintended consequence of shutting down individual towns.

The concerns appear in a report released in a tranche of Sage papers yesterday. The authors warned that an area identified as a Covid-19 “hotspot” may become known as a “place to avoid”.

“Reduction in travel to and through that area will further depress local finances, through reduced business takings and local taxation, resulting in higher reliance on funds from central government,” they write.

No new lockdowns were imposed this week, but restrictions on household gatherings will continue in parts of the North West, West Yorkshire, east Lancashire and Leicester.

Some locked down areas will also be excluded from today’s reopening of casinos, skating rinks, bowling alleys, exhibition halls, conference centres and indoor play areas.

Pools, indoor gyms and other leisure facilities as well as nail bars, spas and beauty salons will continue to remain closed in Bradford, Blackburn and Leicester. The Government said there had been a continued rise in cases in Oldham and Pendle while numbers remain high in Blackburn with Darwen.

Edward Argar, the minister for health, said the measures would be reviewed again next week.

The SPI-B group also warned that shutting businesses would impact local government finances which meant less money to spend on services.

It also advised against using the term “local lockdown” because it had left residents in Leicester feeling “ashamed” and “punished”.

“The intervention was highly divisive,” said the behavioural experts. “People felt that they had been ‘forgotten’ but also had become the ‘lepers of Leicester’ or the ‘pariahs of Leicester’.”