2020-07-04

New covid rules (England, July 4th)

There are new rules - at almost no notice without any parliamentary oversight, as is now usual!

They have gone for a complete rewrite this time.
The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (No. 2) (England) Regulations 2020

Basically, gatherings up to 30 people now and more places allowed to be open subject to risk assessments and measures. All a bit wooly if you ask me.

But also special rules for Leicester
The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Leicester) Regulations 2020

The way they have defined the area is rather odd, if you ask me. It seems they have picked something, perhaps a distance, or drawn a line, or some such, and then used a tool to make a list of postcodes and addresses. It would seem to me to have been simpler to just cover whole postcode areas rather than have 24 pages listing postcodes and addresses.

The addresses include gems like this on page 34!

PUBLIC TELEPHONE 33M FROM 109 WELFORD ROAD 9M FROM UNNAMED ROAD ROUNDABOUT AT THE JUNCTION OF GUTHLAXTON WAY AND WELFORD ROAD WIGSTON LE18 3TE


I found it on street view.


So no gatherings of two or more people in that phone box!
That, to me, suggests this was really not thought about in any detail.

8 comments:

  1. Err... well, no, of course nobody spent time polishing the boundaries of the area. Local lockdowns necessarily have to be done on almost no notice, before the outbreak exponentiates beyond the target area: and the target area is necessarily somewhat subjective, but they have to draw a line *somewhere* or people on the edge would have no idea which rules to follow. Spending ages going through the list street by street making sure everything is pretty when the rules will probably expire in only a month runs completely counter to the point of them.

    Using a phone box as a boundary marker seems perfectly reasonable to me. You also can't have a big gathering in a phone box in Leicester city centre :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My point is that they could have simply gone for "All LE postcodes".

      Delete
    2. The problem is that all LE postcodes would include the whole of Leicestershire, not just Leicester itself. It's only really Leicester they need to lock down, not the whole of Leicestershire, so it's difficult to do either way.

      Delete
    3. OK the main LE postcodes, like LE1, LE2, etc. My point is that the boundary is essentially arbitrary - the virus is not going to read 24 pages of legislation. People (and police) would find it a lot easier if the boundary was easier to understand, even if larger that "draw a line X miles from the city centre" or whatever they actually did.

      Delete
    4. Heaven knows why they didn't simply say "within the boundary of the Unitary Authority of Leicester".

      I imagine there are even "Welcome to Leicester" signs on all the major roads as you cross the boundary.

      Delete
  2. Your new site design looks a mess at 1440p! https://imgur.com/rEGAyzj

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'd give up on the new blog site design / theme / layout. It's awful !

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'd give up on the new blog site design / theme / layout. It's awful !

    ReplyDelete

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