Government 'putting pressure' on councils to move into highest tier of restrictions, meeting told

Wakefield and the rest of West Yorkshire is currently in Tier Two - marked as 'high' by the Government.

Greater Manchester will join the Liverpool City Region in the Tier Three 'very high' category it was confirmed on Tuesday night. Under those restrictions, parts of the hospitality sector are forced to close.

On Wednesday morning, it was confirmed South Yorkshire would join them too.

But Wakefield's Covid recovery board, which is made up of public sector organisations in the district, has been told that the government is keen to move a number of other areas "en masse" into the highest category too.

The meeting was told that areas which have the most stringent measures imposed on them will receive around £8 per head of funding, while those in the middle tier currently get just £3 per head and no additional business help outside the job support scheme.

Joseph Quinn, the council's head of policy and intelligence said: "While Wakefield is in tier two which is high, there's a lot of pressure from the government for areas to move, en masse, into the higher category.

"We've seen the levels of pressure the government's prepared to go to, with the Prime Minister holding press conferences urging Greater Manchester to move to that level."

Mr Quinn suggested that there was anecdotal evidence that local businesses in Wakefield were struggling since the district was put into the middle tier earlier this month.

He added: "Some of the information coming out now is that since moving into tier two, businesses are seeing a reduction in footfall and confused messages from customers.

"We've seen that reflected in cancelled bookings and other customer numbers and things like that."

Local Democracy Reporting Service