Published by Sarah Yeoman at 6:17am 3rd August 2020. (Updated at 12:32pm 3rd August 2020)

Written by Richard Whitehouse, Local Democracy Reporter, and Sarah Yeoman. Photo: Stock image

Cornwall’s tourism boss has explained why the new local lockdowns in the north of England will not stop holidaymakers from those areas coming to the Duchy.

On Thursday night it was announced that areas in the north including Greater Manchester and parts of East Lancashire and West Yorkshire were returning to lockdown.

However, unlike Leicester which was in full lockdown, the new lockdown areas do not include full restrictions.

This means that people living in those areas are still allowed to travel freely and could come to Cornwall on holiday.

"The lockdown in Leicester did restrict movement but in the ones in the north it is restricting people from going to other people’s homes in that area."

He added: “With regards to the north of England most of the people we have coming to Cornwall come from south of Birmingham – a very small number comes from that part of England, less than 10% or 7%, so the proportion is very small.”

Malcolm Bell, chief executive of Visit Cornwall

The reason for so few people coming from further north is purely down to travel times, explained Mr Bell.

Most people will only want to travel for four to five hours maximum and that is not possible in the far north of England.

Mr Bell added that during Leicester's full lockdown, the accommodation providers had been contacting those people who had booked trips to tell them not to come.

He said that if people did turn up from that area, accommodation providers were told they could refuse to let people stay.