Coronavirus: Greater Manchester to move into Tier 3, Prime Minister Boris Johnson confirms

Greater Manchester will enter Tier 3 coronavirus restrictions, Boris Johnson has confirmed.

The prime minister announced the move to tougher COVID-19 restrictions – the top alert level, called “very high” – after talks with local leaders ended without a deal.

The restrictions will begin from Friday.

Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham accused the government of “walking away” from the discussions during an impassioned news conference.

Mr Burnham said local leaders were not offered enough support to protect people through the “punishing” ahead.

Local leaders had been calling for additional financial support totalling £75m before agreeing to the new restrictions.

Speaking earlier, he said civic leaders were prepared to reduce their demand for financial support to £65m, which he said was the “bare minimum to prevent a winter of real hardship”.

“That is what we believe we needed to prevent poverty, to prevent hardship, to prevent homelessness,” Mr Burnham said.

“Those were the figures that we had – not what we wanted – but what we needed to prevent all of those things from happening.

“But the government refused to accept this and at 2pm today they walked away from negotiations.

“In summary, at no point today were we offered enough to protect the poorest people in our communities through the punishing reality of the winter to come.

“Even now I am still willing to do a deal but it cannot be on the terms that the government offered today.”

Mr Burnham added: “I don’t think it is right to ask people to go into a lockdown, to accept further changes within their lives, without supporting them through all of that.

“How can we carry the public with us through this pandemic if we are forcing them to lose their income, their place of work, without supporting them through that?”

Moving into Tier 3 means pubs and bars in Greater Manchester will be closed, unless they serve substantial meals, while betting shops, casinos, bingo halls, adult gaming centres and soft play areas will also shut.

Different households will also be banned from mixing indoors and outdoors, including in private gardens.

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