South Yorkshire enters tier three restrictions from Saturday

South Yorkshire joins the tier three list of regions and cities from this weekend.

The county joins Greater Manchester, Liverpool City Region and Lancashire in the 'very high' level of COVID-19 restrictions in England.

From one minute past midnight on Saturday, areas of Rotherham, Barnsley, Sheffield and Doncaster will have to close their pubs and not have households mixing indoors.

After extensive discussions, the region will receive a £41 m support package for local businesses and local authorities impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.

This comes amid arguments surrounding Greater Manchester's support package being much less than what local leaders requested.

But the Local Government and Communities Minister, Robert Jenrick, said that the support for South Yorkshire was "fair" and "proportionate to what we've done in other parts of the country".

The Mayor of Sheffield City, Dan Jarvis, said that the measures meant that local authorities would be "better equipped to control the virus". If the restrictions proved to be effective, he said that "individual local authorities will be able to move to lower alert levels as soon as it is safe to do so, in consultation with fellow local leaders, myself and national government".