ASDA has responded after concerns were raised about staff not wearing face coverings in one of its Bradford stores.

A Telegraph & Argus reader, who did not wish to be named, got in touch to say she had visited the Canterbury Avenue store this week and saw four staff members not wearing masks - one was a security guard, two were stocking shelves and one was working on the cigarette counter.

She said:"If these members of staff are exempt then maybe they should be issued with a badge identifying this."

The issue of face coverings has been in the national spotlight this week after a number of supermarkets said they would be taking a tougher stance. 

In response to concerns about the Canterbury Avenue store, an Asda spokesperson said: "We have strongly encouraged customers to wear face coverings in our stores since legislation on wearing a mask in retail spaces was introduced in July.

"In September we introduced 1,000 Covid Safety Marshals in our stores to work alongside our Security Colleagues monitoring face coverings, offering free coverings to customers who have forgotten theirs and encouraging adherence to social distancing guidelines.

"We are grateful to our colleagues for their hard work in incredibly difficult circumstances and we implore customers to treat them with respect and comply with the mandatory requirement to wear a face covering unless they have a medical exemption. If a customer has forgotten their face covering, we will continue to offer them  one free of charge – but should a customer refuse to wear a covering without a valid medical reason and be in any way challenging to our colleagues about doing so - our security colleagues will refuse their entry.’’

They added: "All Asda colleagues who are not exempt must wear a face covering provided other measures to protect themselves, such as working behind a physical barrier, have been taken as per the governments guidance.

"Any colleague who is exempt will be identifiable by a badge.’’