‘ The first weekend living on the edge of Tiers 2 and 3’
Yorkshire Postfeatures writer LauraReidreflects on the quirksoflifeon a Yorkshire housing estate on theedgeofwhereTier 2 coronavirusrestrictions meet Tier 3.
THERE’S A bit of a quirk about the area in which we live, right on the border between West and South Yorkshire. We pay council tax to the authority in Wakefield – it is them who empty our bins; and we are members of the electorate in the constituency of Wakefield, so it is the MP there, Imran Ahmad Khan, who represents us in Parliament.
But our postcode is S75 ( covering most of South Yorkshire) and it is Barnsley that is the town given in our address; our GP surgery is a Barnsley practice, our nearest primary school is in Barnsley and the closest shops, pubs, post office, restaurants and railway station, to name just a few local amenities, are also in Barnsley, many just a short walk away.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, it can cause confusion at the best of times. To give one example, on nearly every occasion that we have been to our tip in Wakefield and have been asked to show ID with our address on, it has prompted puzzled looks from staff, who have questioned whether we should actually be heading to Barnsley.
This weekend, our community gained another quirk. We became one of those estates right on the edge of where one tier of coronavirus restrictions meets another.
When it was announced that South Yorkshire was going into the ‘ very high’ alert tier, Tier 3, last week, there was some uncertainty in our residents’ Facebook group - was that us or were we remaining in Tier 2 with West Yorkshire? A check using our postcode on the Government website confirmed the latter, matching us to Wakefield Council, though you can see why there may have been some confusion, not least given the fact that much of the S75 area is under Barnsley Council and the NHS Test and Trace app says our postcode includes areas in both the ‘ high’ and ‘ very high’ alert levels.
The Government is advising people not to travel into or out of an area categorised as having a ‘ very high’ alert level, as South Yorkshire now does, though it says you can continue to do so if you need to for work, education, to access youth services or because of caring responsibilities.
Whilst our estate itself is under Wakefield Council area, it has two entrances/ exits; come out of one side and you remain under the Wakefield local authority, come out of the other and this immediately becomes Barnsley, South Yorkshire.
Given the latest restrictions, one resident made a light- hearted comment about whether we should all now only be using the one entrance and exit on the Wakefield side. Bizarrely, I guess reading the Government advice, the answer to that is technically yes.
My husband and I knew we would still have little choice but to go into Barnsley, therefore entering a Tier 3 area, at times – I’m 25 weeks pregnant and my midwife appointments and our local hospital is there.
But our first few days of living on the edge of two tiers have also presented some interesting realities if we are to stick to the advice to avoid going in and out of South Yorkshire.
Our regular tea- time walk looping the countryside surrounding the estate, for example, normally takes us between both areas - should we change route? Our nearest shop, a local coop a ten minute walk away, is in South Yorkshire - do we drive to an alternative shop in Wakefield instead?
Of course, our little community isn’t the only one experiencing life on the edge of where two coronavirus tiers meet. There will be many more around the country and whilever a local approach is taken to restrictions, then that is bound to be the case for there has to be boundary lines somewhere, marking one tier shifting to another.
With talks set to continue about West Yorkshire potentially joining the south of the region in Tier 3, quite how long this scenario will last for us remains to be seen.