Businesses and residents living on the borders of the north east lockdown area have spoken about how they have been affected.

Many towns and villages lie on the border between Northumberland and Cumbria, meaning that when the local lockdown for the north east was announced, they were swept up in it too.

Gilsland is literally split down the middle, with half being in the Northumberland and the other half in Cumbria.

Malcolm Redman, owner of Bush Nook in Gilsland, lives on the Cumbrian side of the village.

He said: “In general terms, tourism has been affected from March with all of the Covid issues. From the point of our local village, up until now there was a very unified approach, everybody looked after each other.

“The issue with having a slight difference in the lockdown, the Northumberland half of the village is in a slightly different version of lockdown than we are in the Cumbrian side.

“At the end of the day, the basic principle is still much the same. We’re all supposed to keep distance and be sensible.

“We don’t have personal experience of it but there would be families in the village that have one part of the family living in Northumberland and one part of the family living in Cumbria.”

Over in the Alston area, The Nook Farm Shop and Cafe has been designated as being in the Northumberland lockdown zone despite having a Cumbrian address.

They had put in place a “really good one-way system in the building” which saw people going in one door and washing their hands before leaving through another.

“We’re the last farm in Northumberland so we’ve got caught up in the regulations for the north east,” said owner Elaine Edgar.

“I’m disappointed because we had created a very safe environment partly because of the design of the building but also because of the systems we put in place.”

They only opened the business in November last year but business has been going well.

They had also set up an outdoor food trailer to serve takeaway food to motorbikers, however the north east lockdown regulations do not permit this.

“It’s been a difficult weekend in the sense that we have been as busy as ever but we haven’t had that safety net, we feel like we have had that safety net taken away from us.

“I understand why they have done it and I know this is difficult, but a conversation with us as a business would have been better than imposing their restrictions on us.”

Both Malcolm and Elaine are quick to celebrate the community spirit in these areas. Residents seem to be getting on with things and are taking the experience within their stride.

“We’re a small community that looks after each othe. We’ve all been relatively sensible in the village to other people’s safety and responsibilities,” said Malcolm.

Elaine added: “We are grateful for the fact that we have been able to keep going and we thank local people for their support because they have very much supported us.”