A senior Leeds City councillor has claimed the mass gatherings seen at Elland Road and Millennium Square over the weekend showed the ‘bubble has burst’ when it comes to social distancing.
Latest government guidance warns against mass gatherings, urging individuals to keep at least one metre apart, while a ‘track and trace’ scheme, in which officials contact individuals who may have come into contact with the virus, is also in place.
But Leeds City Council’s Liberal Democrat group leader Stewart Golton claimed the scenes during the weekend, when hundreds of Leeds United fans took to the streets to celebrate their team’s promotion, were ‘driven by drink’, which led people to lose ‘self-restraint’.
He also suggested it would be impossible to track and trace those who took part, should any of the revellers get ill from Covid-19.
Coun Golton told a meeting of Leeds City Council’s executive board: “I appreciate the council has been given new powers by government, but it has been given new problems. I’m not sure it’s helpful to have powers if you don’t have the tools to solve it.
“There are instances where the bubble bursts – at a time of civic celebration, sometimes self-restraint is lost.
“The mass gatherings at Elland Road and Millennium Square – the latter especially driven by drink – shows the dangers there are in maintaining the message that the disease is still out there, and we are still vulnerable, and we should all be working together to control the situation.
“You couldn’t track and trace in Millennium Square the other night, and I am not sure our track and trace model is putting us in a good position to confidently lockdown locally where we need to.”
Leeds City Council’s chief executive Tom Riordan said: “I think it’s a balance. When I have been doing the job nationally, there were different views as to whether we should get powers or leave it to government.
“You can put your best system in place of testing and tracing that you like, but it’s down to individuals to do the right thing and to act within the guidance and keep us safe.
“That hasn’t changed – it needs to continue.”
