'We need a closed sign at the M55' says Blackpool Council's opposition leader

Almost 12,000 people had signed the petition, which was reported by The Gazette on Monday, by this morning, but Coun Simon Blackburn said: "Demanding the council do the impossible, like a local lockdown or closing the beaches, does the town and its residents a huge disservice."

He said it would be "demonstrably absurd" to "meaningfully barrier off or otherwise prevent access to seven miles of promenade or beach".

But his opposite number, Coun Tony Williams, the leader of the Conservatives in the resort, said: "We need a huge sign at the end of the M55 that says: 'Blackpool is closed - turn around'.

"We should have left the opening of Yeadon Way until the crisis is over and checked all vehicles coming into the town from other routes. The long tailbacks would soon dampen their enthusiasm to practice such stupidity.

"If this good weather continues, we can expect to see more of the same each week. Why should the good people of this town, who have on the whole obeyed the spirit of the lockdown, have to put up with hordes of mindless idiots trashing our resort?

"Get the barriers out and stop outsiders coming until all resources are back in place at the appropriate time."

Coun Williams said he had seen "shocking scenes" over the weekend, including "the total disregard for social distancing, our Promenade, parks, and beaches treated like a rubbish tip, car parked anywhere and everywhere, drinking in the streets, children going missing, and fools being rescued from a sandbank".

He added: "Why on Earth are we allowing people to treat our beautiful town so disgracefully?"

The petition came after another hot weekend which saw the resort's beaches and parks packed with families and couples, and as the Victoria Hospital's medical director said the number of Covid-related admissions there continues to rise.

Blackpool is one of the country's hotspots and, while deaths remain low, has one of the highest infection rates in England. Another key measure, the R rate, which shows how many people an infected person passes the virus on to on average, was above one last week - meaning infections would grow exponentially - but has since come down.

Despite Boris Johnson's Government easing the country out of strict lockdown measures by allowing people to meet outside in groups of up to six and to go on day trips, as long as they social distance, many residents are concerned about the impact on Blackpool, which has seen a surge in new cases recently.

Brian Pery, who launched the petition, said: "Blackpool has been invaded by people leaving our town filthy, not taking notice of spacing, [and] urinating in the streets.

"It only takes one to pass [the] virus to two more, then it escalates.

"Please consider, for the sake of our residents and future economy, to stop the so-called responsible people from not sticking to rules and close our town [to] them for at least four weeks to allow [the] virus here to stabilise.

"I ask [the] Government to seriously consider this ASAP."

Blackpool has one of the highest rates of infection in the country, official figures showed last week, with 445.8 people out of every 100,000 diagnosed with the virus. Nationally, that figure was just 269.6. Gazette analysis also revealed how the rate of new infections in Blackpool in the last two weeks was the third highest in the country.

At least 640 people living in the council area of Blackpool have been diagnosed with the coronavirus, plus 3,616 in Lancashire, which includes Fylde and Wyre. After dropping early last month, the number of daily new cases has risen sharply again recently.

Last week, the 'R' figure - the number of people each infected person will pass the virus onto, on average - hit 1.6, a sign that the number of people catching the infection is likely to continue to grow quickly. However, this week the figure, which is said to fluctuate regularly, is 0.5.

There have also been 185 confirmed and verified Covid-19-related deaths at the Vic, plus many more in local care homes.

Vic medic Dr Radhakrishna Shanbhag, who is a British Medical Association North West council member, said: "Not only does this mean we're suffering from a disproportionate amount of serious cases and deaths, but also that, as a consequence, gradual lockdown measures may be affected - prolonging the hurt caused to our local economy."

And Dr Jim Gardner, the Vic's medical director, warned "we are not seeing a decline in our overall numbers" of people being admitted to hospital with the coronavirus.

He said: "Looking at our numbers, what we are seeing is that, across the whole of the Fylde coast, we have had 1,117 positive diagnoses of Covid. And in our internal data - in our trust data - we are showing now 144 positive Covid patients.

"That is a higher number than last week so this is an important theme for us.