THERE were scenes resembling March in Basingstoke on Tuesday morning after the town was plunged into a national lockdown for the third time in ten months.

It was announced last night that Basingstoke, as well as the rest of England, will be under strict new coronavirus restrictions for the next seven weeks after a rise in Covid infections risked the NHS becoming overwhelmed.

It means for the third time in less than a year, the town centre was almost empty.

After the first lockdown was announced in March, residents flocked back to the town centre in the summer as non-essential retail and hospitality reopened as cases, hospital admissions and deaths began to reduce.

But as autumn came and cases rose again, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a four-week lockdown in November.

With Tier 4 restrictions coming into force in most of Hampshire from Boxing Day, much of the town centre did not reopen after Christmas.

But with the PM's 'Stay at Home' message making a return, people across Basingstoke must not leave their house, except for one of a few key exceptions.

As well as some other reasons, you're allowed to leave your house to shop for essentials and to work if you cannot work from home.

And most of the people around Basingstoke town centre on Tuesday morning were out for one of those reasons.

Whilst the main shopping streets inside Festival Place were empty with shutters down, a handful of people were out and about using the supermarkets and other essential retailers dotted around.

Cafes and restaurants, still able to open for takeaway, were mainly deserted, whilst roads around the town were significantly quieter.

In the leisure park, the place where months ago a mobile testing unit was set up by the Army, just a handful of cars remained with most of the businesses shut.

Basingstoke's MP Maria Miller said: “It’s really difficult for everyone to go into a third lock down but now more than ever, we must pull together following the new rules, particularly given the significantly increased number who need acute care in our local hospital.

"These new restrictions will be reviewed on 15th February.

“The message is very clear, stay at home unless you have very specific reasons to leave such as to get food, medical treatment, exercise, or you cannot do your job from home.

“This lockdown comes as the national Covid-19 vaccine programme continues to roll out.

"In Hampshire more than 30,000 people at the highest risk have already been vaccinated and this week our hospital staff start to be vaccinated as well.

"The vaccination programme is good news but we shan’t start to see the benefits until large numbers of people have been vaccinated.

"As things stand it is estimated that the key groups will be vaccinated by mid-February.

“Its all our responsibilities to stay at home to cut rates of transmission helping our local NHS to cope with this difficult and fast-moving situation.”