LANCASHIRE'S Resilience Forum boss has called on the pleaded with public to stick to lockdown guidelines after seeing 'worrying pictures of big groups this weekend'.

Deputy Chief Constable Terry Woods warned that the battle to save lives was not over and if people continued to ignore the government's lockdown guidelines then there would be an increase in new Covid-19 cases and deaths.

DCC Woods was responding to a Tweet from Blackburn with Darwen public health director Dominic Harrison who was raising concerns about Lancashire's coronavirus R rate and encouraging people to adhere to social distancing.

The R rate or reproduction number is a way of rating a disease's ability to spread. The R is It's the number of people that one infected person will pass the virus on to, on average.

In his Tweet, Mr Harrison said: "Lancashire R is currently estimated to be between 0.6 and 1. There is a 50 per cent probability that R is 1. All contact not properly social distanced will increase infections which will proportionately increase deaths. Please keep to #lockdown rules today!

In response, DCC Woods wrote: "As Chair of @LancsResilience my plea is for Lancashire to keep being sensible like have up to now.Very worrying pictures of big groups this weekend.The battle to save live is not over and if we ignore guidance then we will see increased cases and deaths again.£