BRADFORD Council leader Susan Hinchcliffe has urged the Government to provide stronger support amid fears the Indian variant of Covid-19 could have a “devastating” impact on the district if it spreads.

She has written to Health Secretary Matt Hancock calling for him to support locally-led plans to tackle the virus - and to reduce the risk of future lockdowns.

The district has been under restrictions for far longer than many other places in the country.

Cllr Hinchcliffe has called for the supply of more vaccines to the Bradford district, coupled with greater flexibility to use them, to prevent a “crisis”. 

She also asked for the go-ahead to extend the district’s local test and trace system, which currently picks up cases that the national system fails to trace.

In the letter, Cllr Hinchcliffe said that she had already made these requests multiple times to the Health Secretary’s representatives, who had promised rapid action but which had so far not materialised. 

Cllr Hinchcliffe told Mr Hancock in her letter: “We cannot be in a position where further restrictions are our only option.”

She said: “I am frustrated that we are doing all we can locally and you recognise like us that there needs to be more done in areas like ours with enduring transmission.

“We are promised fast action to address our issues from your representatives who approach us to work with us, but frankly our experience is that this just becomes a talking shop, we need action now, whilst we still have a chance to prevent further infections and deaths from new variants, in communities that already experience huge inequalities.”

She highlighted that the Indian variant of Covid is in the district and said: “If this takes hold in our district it will spread so rapidly and have a continuing devastating impact on our communities as well as risking further restrictions in a district that has been in lockdown for longer than other areas of the country.

"The national strategy seems to be that we will get the support we need in crisis but not proactively as a way to prevent us having to deal with the crisis in the first place. This cannot be right, you need to do the right thing now and give us access to the levels of vaccine that we need to prevent a crisis that at this stage is predictable.”

Commenting on the letter, Cllr Hinchcliffe said: “Alongside our local NHS partners we are strongly supporting the vaccine roll-out. Vaccinations are the single best way out of this pandemic and back to a more open way of life.

“What we are saying to Matt Hancock is that we also need to build on that and do even more in our district to tackle the stubborn rates of transmission, which remain a concern.

“A one-size-fits-all approach fails to account for the inequalities that this virus has exposed across the country and it is widely accepted that such inequalities fuel transmission because they leave some people more vulnerable to infection than others.

"We will all benefit – people and businesses in the Bradford district and beyond – if the government were to allocate an increased number of vaccines to those areas which have suffered most infection. We are also calling on Government to allow us to extend our local contact tracing system which has a strong track record in reaching cases that the national system fails to reach.

“Thankfully infection rates in the district are much lower than they were and we are now outside the top 20 nationally but with news of the Indian variant, we need to be proactive in protecting residents from further infections. I appeal to people to stay safe.”

The Department of Health & Social Care was contacted for a comment, but a response was not received by the time of going to press. 

In a statement to the House of Commons on Monday, the Health Secretary said the vaccination strategy for all parts of the UK - including the areas of surge vaccination - would stick to the clinical advice set out by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation.