Police confirm how far you can travel in Sheffield for exercise under Covid lockdown rules

When the country was placed in lockdown in January in a bid to prevent the spread of coronavirus, the Government urged people to stay local.

New rules published at the start of lockdown said exercise should be limited to once a day and people were warned: “You should not travel outside your local area.”

It has led to widespread confusion around what constitutes ‘local’.

Last month, Derbyshire Constabulary apologised after two women were each fined £200 for travelling five miles from their homes in Leicestershire to walk around Foremark Reservoir in neighbouring Derbyshire.

But despite the advice being to stay local, it is not against the law to travel for exercise.

Superintendent Paul McCurry, of South Yorkshire Police, said: “It is not against the law to travel for exercise, but we do strongly encourage people to stay local where possible and stay two metres apart.

“Road traffic collisions obviously put additional strain on emergency services and we want to minimise these.

“Due to the weather, roads and beauty spots were fairly quiet this weekend, but we expect this will change. Please only travel where necessary.”

Since the start of the pandemic, 860 hospital patients have died in Sheffield hospitals after testing positive for Covid-19.

The figure does not include those in other settings.

There have been 705 Covid deaths in Doncaster hospitals, 566 in Barnsley and 542 in Rotherham.

Figures released yesterday put the number of confirmed Covid deaths in hospitals in England at 80,115.