THERE is ‘depressingly little’ evidence that a significant minority of people are avoiding large gatherings and house parties, despite strict restrictions, according to a regional police chief.

Baroness Beverley Hughes, deputy mayor of Greater Manchester, said there was little indication that behaviour was changing amongst certain groups of people and that a 21-strong special team of officers dealing with breaches was now based in Bolton.

She told a press conference: “While the majority of the public are complying, there is a persistent significant minority of people who aren’t doing so.

“We had hoped to see some abatement in large gatherings and other activity among a significant minority. I’m afraid that has not happened. Reports have continued at similar levels to recent weeks.”

Over the weekend of September 19 and 20, GMP were called out to more than 500 breaches, including 350 house parties, street parties, birthday parties and other illegal gatherings.

Another 27 fines were handed out, with 16 handed out to people at one event who failed to disperse when asked by officers.

Baroness Hughes added that Bolton had pioneered setting up of joint team of police and local authority enforcement officers with a team of 21  based in the town..

She said: “Starting in Bolton there are now locally based joint police and local authority teams and they are identifying and responding to local intelligence in Bolton as it emerges.

“Undertaking local patrols and responding to other reports from the public .

“There is a central command function, an intelligence cell and a radio despatch team coordinating that activity and that enables flexible deployment, one is based in Bolton and the other respond to reports in the rest of the city region, each has 21 officers.”

She said that these special operations are costing Greater Manchester Police up to £100,000 every weekend.

She said the force is already struggling with resurgent levels of crime which are now back up where they were before lockdown, with a spike in serious crimes in recent weeks.

Meanwhile there are 300 officers self-isolating after coming into contact with a family member or friend with Covid-19, while 48 have tested positive for the virus themselves.

Calls are now being made for the government to provide extra funding to GMP in order for the force to staff its weekend operations which will now include the new curfews.

Baroness Hughes said: “It costs us £70k to 100k every weekend for those operations.

“The government wants to see a surge in police visibility on the streets. I have to say that resources that we’ve got, both money and staff, are not infinitely elastic.

“Whilst police are always prepared to do absolutely everything they can to respond to demands, I think the situation is such that we now need help from the government to step up even further the response they envisage.

“In GMP the extent to which our officers can do even more overtime is limited and we will have to seek mutual aid from other forces in order to put extra presence on the streets.”