Bolton Council leader wants borough to be released from local lockdown

Parts of Greater Manchester remain under local lockdown measures - but for how much longer?Restrictions have been in place for more than five weeks now, and only two boroughs have seen a full lifting of local lockdown measures.Residents of Wigan and Stockport are now under national guidance while people living in Manchester, Trafford, Salford, Tameside, Rochdale and Bury are still prevented from mixing with other households in their homes and gardens.Oldham and Bolton are seeing the strictest

but the government decided to keep the restrictions in place at the last minute following a surge in cases.Stricter restrictions that prevent the mixing of different households both indoors and outdoors will remain in Oldham.However, casinos, skating rinks, conference centres and the other venues and services listed above will be allowed to reopen in Oldham along with other boroughs of Greater Manchester.Stockport and Wigan remain the only two boroughs in Greater Manchester to have their local

Salford's public health director has explained why regional restrictions should remain in place despite the number of deaths from coronavirus staying low.Rules prohibiting people from meeting with members of different households indoors or in private gardens are in force across most of Greater Manchester.Wigan and Stockport have now been released from the regional restrictions.But in Bolton and Trafford, where rules were due to be relaxed this week, the restrictions will remain in place due to a

lockdown measures will remain in the borough, which has the second highest rate of new coronavirus cases in the country.

with the second highest rate of new coronavirus cases in the country.The town was due to be released from the Greater Manchester-wide lockdown today, despite council leader David Greenhalgh making a last minute plea to Mr Hancock to reconsider the move.But this afternoon, Mr Hancock has announced that restrictions will remain in place across Bolton - and Trafford, where it's a similar story, with infection rates creeping up.He said: “Following a significant change in the level of infection rates

officially lifted by the government today.The Greater Manchester mayor said the region finds itself in “a completely unsustainable position” after restrictions were released in the two boroughs overnight.

Bolton council has today (Tuesday) called on the government to postpone the end of the local lockdown in the town. Restrictions were set to take place at midnight tonight.Leaders want Bolton to remain in lockdown - like Rochdale, Tameside, Salford, Bury and Manchester - until the rate of new cases begins to fall.

near 100pc increase in case numbers in the last week, Coun Andrew Western said he was ‘very disappointed’ that the government had ignored his own concerns and those of others locally and made what he labelled a ‘purely political calculation’. Coun Western was left furious on Friday August 28 when central government announced Trafford would be released from Greater Manchester lockdown restrictions.

latest officially confirmed figures - which takes it up to the week ending Friday (August 28) - detail 44.9 cases per 100,000 people, only slightly below the rate of 50.

'sudden, concerning and unpredicted', has prompted council and health leaders to call an emergency meeting on Tuesday morning. Separate government figures show there were 40 new cases recorded on Thursday in Bolton.

here"I've worried about things like people's mental health, we know people have died, people are grieving and people get a lot of support from loved ones and friends, not being able to see them has been really, really hard."Although Greater Manchester's leaders, including Mayor Andy Burnham, had asked for Stockport and Bolton to have restrictions lifted on Wednesday, the decision was not confirmed until Friday evening ahead of a bank holiday weekend.Asked about the timing of the announcement,

remain in place in Oldham - which still has the highest infection rate in the region.Residents there can no longer socialise with anyone outside their household and can only use public transport if essential.Wigan, which has the lowest infection rate, remains lifted out of the increased measures.Meanwhile Salford, Bury, Manchester, Tameside and Rochdale all remain in local lockdown.Residents in these areas must continue to adhere to the rules which prohibit two households from meeting indoors or

Stockport, Trafford and Bolton join Wigan in obtaining more freedoms, after Covid-19 infection rates in the boroughs fell consistently.Oldham meanwhile, remains subject to more stringent restrictions which prohibit households from mixing.The situation has not changed for the other five Greater Manchester boroughs however. It means Manchester, Salford, Bury, Tameside and Rochdale remain under the local lockdown restrictions that were introduced on July 31.

Greater Manchester now has the lowest number of coronavirus cases since the end of July.There were 788 positive tests for the virus across all ten boroughs in the week ending August 24, the lowest number since July 28.Rates are calculated up to three days ago because of the delay in reporting cases.The infection rate is continuing to fall in Oldham, Rochdale, Salford and Bolton, with the number of cases falling in seven of the region's boroughs.Cases are still rising in Wigan, with an extra 10

hereBut the Greater Manchester Mayor said the amount simply won’t provide enough support.Mr Burnham said: “I am pleased they have at last acknowledged this issue but am sorry to say this move goes nowhere near far enough.“The Health Secretary has already said that he couldn’t live on Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) at £95 a week.

Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham said that Bolton has the backing of Greater Manchester's leaders.He said: "There's a very much changed position in Bolton and Stockport and consistent with what we said last week where Wigan had a very different position, we're obviously following that approach this week."There's a political consensus within those boroughs now to ask the government to remove the restriction on social gatherings in the home introduced at the back end of July."Mr Burnham will

Coronavirus rates are now lower in Greater Manchester than they were at the start of the local lockdown, with the latest data suggesting a regional spike in cases has been reversed.Extra restrictions on the ten boroughs in the region have been in place for three full weeks after being announced on July 30.At the time the local lockdown was declared, infection rates were rising in all ten boroughs of Greater Manchester, and this trend continued broadly for the first two weeks after the measures

The government said it will continue to monitor the situation and keep all restrictions and easements under consideration as the decision was prompted by new cases of coronavirus reducing.But the current rules banning gatherings in private homes and gardens will NOT be eased in Leicester, nor in Greater Manchester or parts of Lancashire and Yorkshire.The announcement means Leicester's nail bars, beauty salons, tanning booths and salons, spas and beauty salons, massage parlours, tattoo parlours,

map showing cases in smaller districts, the hotspots in Oldham have been particularly concentrated in two areas - Alexandra Park and Werneth.