ITALIAN restaurant chain Pizza Express is set to cut 1,300 jobs, blaming Covid-19's impact on footfall since September.

The chain, which has restaurants in Bradford city centre and also at Birstall Retail Park, said the roles will be cut from restaurants across the country through both compulsory and voluntary redundancies.

It said the decision will help it manage the challenges this winter and beyond as it expects footfall to remain lower than usual.

In August, Pizza Express said that around 1,100 jobs were at risk and the new losses come on top of this.

Zoe Bowley, managing director of Pizza Express, said: “Our aim throughout these extremely challenging times has been to keep our team members and customers safe, and to retain jobs for as long as possible.

“As a leading employer in our sector, we see every day how this pandemic is having a profound impact on our industry, our business and on people’s lives.

“Unfortunately,the recent increase in Covid-19 cases is again causing footfall to decline across the UK.

"As this is expected to continue for some months, we sadly need to make changes that will impact more of our team members.

“Our people remain at the heart of our business and we are doing what we can to support those who are affected.

“We believe that this difficult decision will give us more resilience through the next six months and help us to continue serving our customers in our restaurants and at home in the years ahead.”

Restaurants were boosted by the Government's £522 million Eat Out to Help Out scheme in August, but a sharp rise in Covid-19 infections and tightening restrictions on the hospitality industry, such as the 10pm curfew, has seen a fall in customers heading for a meal.

It is unclear how many jobs at the sites in Bradford and Birstall may be affected by the cuts, but if each restaurant is affected equally it would mean seven jobs lost across the two eateries.