Drone footage used to highlight social distancing concerns

People in Portsmouth have been urged to stick to Covid rules when visiting the seafront, after drone footage highlighted social distancing concerns.

Portsmouth City Council has released footage shot from above of Southsea seafront, taken on Saturday, January 9.

The images were captured in a bid to determine whether people were maintaining safe distances from each other.

In response new signs will be put up around problem areas and more Covid marshals will patrol the promenade.

The council’s traffic and transport boss, Councillor Lynne Stagg, said: ‘This highlighted the issue of people sitting and stopping at certain points along the seafront, whereas most areas were flowing with people exercising and able to practice social distancing.

‘This issue with certain locations was then causing a problem with people trying to safely pass others.

‘To address this we will be adding new signage in these areas to make people aware of the need to keep moving and we will have marshals visiting these locations to encourage people to continue their exercise in line with government guidelines.

‘We will continue to monitor the situation and if our regular reviews of the area show that it becomes even busier, we may need take additional actions such as closing some stretches of road as we did during the summer, however the evidence shows that this is not currently necessary.’

Following concerns about social distancing along the seafront a section of the road, from Mozzarella Joes to the Blue Reef Aquarium, was closed during the weekend (January 9 and 10) but reopened on Monday.

Cllr Stagg added: ‘People raised concerns about the number of people and the lack of social distancing along the seafront and in response we closed a section of the seafront last weekend.

‘This wasn’t advertised as it was important that we were able to gauge how the spaces were currently being used.

‘It is absolutely essential that everyone follows the government advice and only go out to an open space to exercise once a day, with their household or bubble or if alone, with one other person. Please stay local.’

Queen Alexandra Hospital in Cosham has now reported 515 Covid related deaths since the start of the pandemic.