Life on the line: The Leicester street cut in half by the lockdown boundary

On one very confused road on the outskirts of Leicester, Samuel Lovett finds residents grappling with 'anger all over the estate. There’s a lot of uncertainty'

Paula Meadows, a resident on Bowhill Grove, says the lockdown boundary is causing confusion in the local area (Samuel Lovett)

Out on the eastern fringes of Leicester, the newly imposed lockdown has left one community divided in a way it never anticipated at the start of the pandemic.

For those on Bowhill Grove, a 500-yard stretch of road running through the heart of Thurnby Lodge, the boundary map hastily drawn up by local authorities has provoked anger and confusion, cutting the street quite literally in half.

“It just doesn’t make any sense,” says Lorraine Rust, a resident who lives outside the lockdown – just. “I’m afraid it’s either all or nothing, you can’t just do one side and not the other. You can simply walk up and cross over. How ridiculous.”

While the homes inside the boundary line are now subject to the tighter restrictions introduced on Monday, with people advised to remain indoors where possible, those across the street are free to enjoy their newfound liberties. Here, the notion of walking the line has taken a very literal meaning.

“Some people are saying they’re out of the restrictions and some other people are saying they’re not. We don’t really know where the boundaries lie,” says Paula Meadows from her front garden, adding that it was going to be impossible to police. “There’s an odd few that are going to ruin it for everyone else.

“It’s so difficult, people had gone back to work and back to school for a week or so and now they’ve back in lockdown again. It’s just causing a lot of uproar and upset.”

Her son, Liam, argues that the border should “have been more into where the countryside starts”.

“It’s hard to tell what you and can’t do,” he says. “Where you can go, where you can’t go – I think it’s quite open to interpretation.”

Leicestershire County Council’s director of public health said the lockdown map, unveiled after the restrictions were announced, had been “a rapid piece of work”, designed by the county council, Leicester City Council and Public Health England (PHE). Although based on “PHE expert data on where cases are”, it is an “imprecise science and we were working at great pace to get it done”, Mike Sandys said.

The locals are anything but convinced. “When they said Leicester, everybody should have been locked down,” says Pamela Peel, a resident whose home dodges the restrictions. “You’ll find this confusion and anger all over the estate. There’s a lot of uncertainty.”

A few doors down, Thomas Smith, a local plumber, agrees.

“The other side of the road? It’s no different to here on this side. It should have been all of Leicester,” he says. “The pub isn’t opening, is it? Houghton on the Hill, which is a mile away, that is opening. We’re not allowed to go there, but others are. It’s just crazy.”

However, there’s no doubt the area is at risk. Thurnby Lodge is just a stone’s throw away from North Evington – the city’s hardest-hit ward. An investigation conducted by PHE found that the infection rate recorded in the community from “pillar-2 testing” – swab tests conducted outside NHS hospitals and PHE labs – was more than four times higher than the average for England. In total, all but one of Leicester East’s seven wards feature in the city’s top worst affected areas.

Understandably, people are staying cautious. Tina Taylor, another resident on Bowhill Grove, says that regardless of whether her home was in or out of the lockdown zone, she wouldn’t be dropping her guard in the weeks to come.

“Why jeopardise it,” she says. “People across are teasing that they’re not in lockdown. It doesn’t matter to me what side we’re on. Even the two metre to one metre, we’re not changing. I want to stay safe. We won’t be going to our local, even if it opened.”

The pub in question, the White House, sits a matter of metres outside the boundary line, at the top of the road, but has opted against opening its doors this weekend so as not to tempt its regulars into breaking the rules. While other such businesses will welcome back the punters on Saturday, the White House will stand silent and empty.

A spokesperson for JD Wetherspoon, which owns the pub, said staying shut was the socially responsible thing to do. “The White House (Scraptoft) is not technically within the lockdown area but it is located so very close to the ‘red line’ border that we felt it responsible not to reopen the pub on Saturday,” they said.

Anger against the government is rife in these parts. People across the city have told The Independent they believe Leicester is being made an example of, serving as a warning to the rest of England, but this frustration is particularly acute for those living on the line in Bowhill Grove.

It’s hard to tell what you and can’t do... Where you can go, where you can’t go – I think it’s quite open to interpretation 

Liam Meadows

“We’re all a bit fed up,” says Peel, lamenting how hard it is to even travel within the UK. “You can’t go on holiday because people won’t accept Leicester people. It’s not our fault. I know it’s an epidemic but a lot of people – it’s everywhere in every city – they’re not following the rules.

“I’ve got no faith in the government at all. It all started when he [Boris Johnson] let Cummings go off on his travels. Everybody then thought, ‘right we can all travel now,’ she says, referring to the PM’s top aide Dominic Cummings – and his much publicised trip to Durham, and then to Barnard Castle.

“The government has put this map out but it’s so confusing for everyone around here. Nobody really knows what’s going on.”

The local lockdown is due to be reviewed from 18 July, with politicians such as Jonathan Ashworth – the shadow health secretary and MP for Leicester South – calling on Downing Street to ensure businesses and communities in Leicester are supported during this period as the rest of the country takes another step towards normality.

In the meantime, the people of Bowhill Grove plod on, muddled and uncertain as to what they can and cannot do, caught on the edge of a fresh outbreak that has brought an entire city grinding to a halt. “What can you do?” says Smith. “Who knows when this is all going to be over?”