Conservative MPs urge Nottinghamshire County Council leaders to not include Mansfield and Ashfield in a 'very high' lockdown

In a joint letter, Mansfield MP Ben Bradley, Ashfield MP Lee Anderson and Bassetlaw MP Brendan Clarke-Smith called on council leaders not to merge the towns into a ‘very high’ level lockdown, if the number of cases in the three areas remain significantly lower than places such as Nottingham.

It comes after Nottinghamshire will be placed under ‘high’ tier lockdown restrictions from Wednesday, which will prevent people from mixing with other households indoors.

Mansfield currently has a rate of 81 new cases in every 100,000 people according to Public Health England data from October 3 to October 9 – slightly higher than the country’s average of 77 cases.

While Nottingham had drastically more infections, with an average of 834 new positive Covid-19 tests in the city per every 100,000 people, based on the data from October 3 to October 9.

Both Mansfield and Nottingham are subject to the tier-two level measures which prevents households from mixing with each other indoors.

The MPs wrote: “As you will all be aware, there are huge disparities in the rates on infection depending on where you live in the county.

"The City of Nottingham has the highest rates of infection in the country at the time of writing.

"According to the figures, accurate for the seven days to October 9, the city’s rate per 100,000 people now stands at 834.2 cases.

"It is a fact that all areas of Nottinghamshire have had an increase of infections in the last week.

"The rates for the above – the north of the county – only slightly increased.

"In the case of Bassetlaw, there were 6 new cases.”

The Mansfield, Ashfield and Bassetlaw MPs have criticised Kay Cutts for following a ‘one size fits all’ approach in terms of the lockdown - by subjecting areas in the north to the with fewer cases to the same restrictions as Nottingham which had over 10 times as many infections.

The join letter signed by Mr Anderson, Mr Bradley and Mr Clarke-Smith read: “As the council leader for your authority you all supported the ‘one size fits all’ approach and went on record to argue that the entire county should be have the same restrictions placed on it.

"As a county we are now in Tier 2.

"This has huge implications for how residents live their life.

"It has consequences for hospitality, family life and mental health.

“If an authority’s rates of infection were to increase and warrant further restrictions, we would support the measures.

"As you can see from the figures above – the south of the county has huge rates of infections – the north does not.

"We call on you today to pledge that should this disparity continue, the areas which do not justify harsher restrictions will not get grouped together with the areas that do.

"Our residents elected us to represent them and to act in their best interests, not to do what is administratively easiest for ourselves.

“Please let us know if you will support us should the situation emerge.”

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