Kettering to get a Covid-19 regional testing centre

Kettering Conference Centre is to become home to a Covid-19 regional testing centre.

Director of Public Health Lucy Wightman confirmed the news that a long-term testing station is to be set up in the town at the weekly Covid-19 oversight meeting this morning (Aug 27).

She said: “We have been lobbying for this for a number of months. And we have now got support for that to be built. It is currently with the two legal teams but we understand the project build plan will be ready for the end of next week. We are looking to have that regional testing site at Kettering Conference Centre car park up and running within a matter of two to three weeks.”

It will be the first regional testing site in the county.

There are currently a number of mobile testing sites that move around the county after a period of three to seven days in one spot, plus three local testing centres in Kettering, Welligborough and Corby.

Up until August 20 local and mobile testing sites in the county have carried out 16,400 tests.

A mobile testing centre will tomorrow set up at the Tresham College car park in Windmill Avenue, Kettering, for the first time.

The director of public health said this was to help cover ‘some high incidence in Ise and Burton Latimer’.

There will also be a mobile centre set up at the Nene Centre car park in Thrapston.

Kettering has had the second highest number of Covid-19 cases in the county, which has an overall Covid-19 rate significantly above the national average.

There have been 669 positive tests of Kettering residents since the pandemic began, with Northampton by far the worst affected town, with 1,754 positive cases.

However the number of cases in Kettering looks like they are steadily rising again. In the week between August 18 to August 25 there were 30 positive tests in the town.

The highest daily number was on August 19 when seven cases were recorded.

An outbreak happened at the Stirrup Cup pub in Barton Seagrave last week.A message from the Editor:

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