Lockdown three is here and as with the last two we are being asked to put a pause on our everyday comforts, to temporarily put out our lives on hold, for the good of others. To dig deep within ourselves, rekindle our sense of community and joint purpose, to do our bit.

So, it is with great sadness that over the last week we have seen people ignore the messages to: Stay Home Protect the NHS.

The images of the Oxhey Activity Park should anger us all.

However, are we surprised? After all we live in a town where we live with restrictions such as parking restrictions. Huge sections of our town live under some form of controlled parking and come every election it is still used as tool to make political points with.

Why does parking come up if we have restrictions you may ask. Well it is simple - our council loves making rules but not enforcing them.

As with the parking rules our council fails to play its part in enforcing Covid-19 restrictions.

Our council needs to wake up, smell the coffee, pull its finger out and hire enforcement officers.

Otherwise as lockdown fatigue kicks in, scenes such as the ones seen at the Oxhey Activity Park will be an ever-present sight across our town resulting in more infections, a longer lockdown and tragically more deaths.

I urgently call on Peter Taylor to get a grip, hire staff and do his bit to bring Covid under control.

We are doing our bit, it is time our politicians did theirs.

Seamus Williams,

Labour Party 2021 council candidate