Blackburn with Darwen has been made an 'area of intervention' by Public Health England

The rise in cases in the Lancashire district was the highest recorded at local level.

The leader of Blackburn with Darwen Council has said it is “sensible not to relax” lockdown restrictions, as the rate of Covid-19 cases in the borough shot up.

Councillor Mohammed Khan urged the community to “keep up the momentum” in combating the disease.

PHE defines such areas as those “where there is divergence from the measures in place in the rest of England because of the significance of the spread, with a detailed action plan in place, and local resources augmented with a national support”.

“We are very grateful to our communities for working with us,” said Mr Khan.

“The increase in testing is helping to ensure that we are heading in the right direction with a reduction in positive cases and hospital admissions.

“We need to keep up the momentum with our strong prevention work so we agree it’s sensible not to relax the easing of restrictions at the moment to stop the spread.

Mr Khan added the decision to delay the reopening of council leisure facilities would run alongside new “localised prevention measures”.

“We feel that accelerating our control measures in this way will assist us to move out of having higher Covid rates even faster – we are grateful for the Government’s help in our local plans on this,” he said.

The rate of cases in Blackburn with Darwen has jumped from 49.7 cases per 100,000 in the seven days to July 13 to 81.9 in the seven days to July 20.