Businesses in Sunderland have been warned monitoring and spot checks will be carried out to tackle the spread of coronavirus, with the hospitality industry facing additional scrutiny.
Sunderland City Council says businesses failing to implement coronavirus safety measures could face further restrictions or be ordered to close.
It comes as residents were warned the city is “very close” to a local lockdown after the city was put on Public Health England’s ‘enhanced support’ watch list following a steep increase in cases.
There were 244 new positive cases in the seven days to Tuesday, September 8.
This equates to around 75 cases per 100,000 people - three times higher than the national rate.
In the letter, Gillian Gibson, director of public health for Sunderland, said: “As cases increase in the city the requirement to strictly uphold Covid-19 secure practices and procedures at your business to protect the health and safety of both staff and patrons becomes even more vital.
“The future of your ability to operate without restrictions depends upon the ability to locally control the spread of the virus.
“Recent tracing of a number of positive cases together with reports of failures to uphold Covid-19 secure management in some licensed premises focuses on additional scrutiny on the hospitality sector.”
Businesses have been reminded they must have strict and thorough measures in place to ensure premises are Covid-19 secure, including social distancing, hand washing facilities, cleaning regimes, and systems to make sure staff are implementing these measures.
As well as a ban on groups of more than six people from Monday, businesses have been told they will likely be required to have a robust Test and Trace mechanism in place to identify people who may need to self-isolate.
Ms Gibson warned active monitoring and spot checks will be carried out and any failings to manage the risk could result in restrictions or the business shut.
She added: “We appreciate the behaviour of customers plays a significant role in your success and we will continue to remind citizens of their responsibilities.
“We urge you to do everything necessary to help prevent our city succumbing to further outbreaks and the possibility of further restrictions being imposed.”
