More than one-third of 300 calls in a single day to Northamptonshire Police were over breaches of Covid-19 rules

More than a third of all calls to the Police over the weekend were over breaches of Covid rules.

Staff at the Northamptonshire Police Force Control Room received 300 reports about incidents across the county on Saturday alone — 120 of them to do with coronavirus and mostly from people 'shopping' their neighbours.

Among the calls was for males playing football on a school astroturf pitch and breaking in to a village skate park.

The stunning stat comes on the back of pleas from health chiefs to stick to the rules as infection rates remain stubbornly high in parts of the county compared to the national average.

Corby remains the area with the UK's highest infection rate with 321.2 new positive tests in the week to February 16.

Assistant Chief Constable Simon Blatchly told Friday's weekly Covid-19 press conference: "Most of the calls we get from members of the public are regarding neighbours with gatherings and people outside places in what seem to be large numbers, and we attend where we can.

"The most common offences were are still unfortunately seeing and enforcing is people travelling outside without reasonable excuse and not wearing face masks when they should be."

Latest official figures released last month showed 495 tickets were handed out between mid-December and January 17 for various breaches of the coronavirus regulations across the county.

Seven fines were issued to males at a school astroturf pitch in Deanshanger for a "clear breach of Covid rules" while a similar gathering at Pottersbury skate park.

A spokesman said: "Letters have been sent to parents of teenagers using the skate park.

"It is closed as per Government guidelines and they broke in to use it, this is a breach of Covid restrictions and anti-social behaviour. Please do not take your children to the area to use the skate park."

Suspected breaches of Covid-19 legislation can also be reported via the Northamptonshire Police website HERE.