More than 700 covid warnings handed out to rule-breaking businesses and individuals in Rotherham

A police boss has revealed that more than 700 covid warnings have been handed out in Rotherham since they were introduced.
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Steve Chapman, temporary chief superintendent and district commander for South Yorkshire Police told a meeting of Rotherham Council’s health and wellbeing board on March 10 that the force has issued 736 “covid enforcement actions” to date.

This includes 213 warnings to businesses, 433 warnings to individuals, 73 closure and prohibition notices on premises, as well as more than 400 fixed penalty notices.

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“We’re still quite clear that people should stay at home an only leave if there’s good reason to do so, but of course there’s more exempmtions around that,” TCS Chapman told the meeting.

The meeting.The meeting.
The meeting.

“We know that gong forward people can meet up with one other person for recreational purposes.

“The big one is that election campaigning is permitted and again is subject to limits.

He added that the partnership between the council and police force should also adapt to the changing situaton around the regulations.

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TCS Chapman told the meeting of the health that the force faces a number of challenges, including Covid hotspots inthe borough, the visibilty of safeguarding issues, and the complexity of the referrals mde to the mental health service.

He also told the meeting that there is a temporary pause to the victim perpetrator programme as the community rehabilitation company has been “absorbed by the probation service”.

There are also concerns over the funding of a psecialist mental health nurse, who joins officers on calls where members of the public are in crisis.

“The challenge for us is funding – to date the safer neighbourhood partnership has paid for the mntal health nurse, it appears it does work but we are struggling to find the funding at this time,” added TCS Chapman.