What actually counts as your ‘local area’ during this lockdown

Under the new lockdown you can only leave your home for a few reasons and must remain local – but what counts as local? 

The guidance for the third national lockdown calls for the public to ‘stick to your local area’ and to otherwise ‘stay home’ unless for one of a few essential reasons. 

The possible reasons you can leave your home include going to work where it is impossible to work from home, to shop for necessities, to exercise, to provide care or attend medical appointments. 

However, one of those reasons is providing a bit of confusion among the public, with two women even being fined £200 each for going on their daily walk.

The government guidance states that outdoor exercise should be limited to once a day and remain in your ‘local area’.

You can exercise outdoors alone, with your household, your support bubble, child care bubble or with one other person from another household (to make a maximum of two people). 

But two Derbyshire women were fined after driving five miles to exercise at Foremark Reservoir during the lockdown in two separate cars. 

The duo claims the police told them their hot drinks counted as a picnic. Derbyshire Police defended their decision, explaining that driving for exercise was ‘not in the spirit’ of lockdown.

The government guidance states that your local area is limited to ‘your village, town or the part of a city where you live’. 

You can visit outdoor places such as parks, beaches, countryside accessible to the public, forests, public gardens, the grounds of a heritage site and playgrounds for your daily exercise. 

However this should be done locally where possible, but you can travel a short distance within your own area to do so if necessary, for example, to access to an open space.