Military personnel are being deployed to help Merseyside councils ensure businesses are complying with lockdown regulation.
The troops, who will not be in uniform, will provide extra capacity for councils’ environmental health teams as they monitor compliance with Covid-19 rules.
Deputy Chief Constable Serena Kennedy, who chairs the Merseyside Resilience Forum (MRF), said: “Through the MRF, a request was made under the Military Aid for Civil Authorities (MACA) process to support the additional work that environmental health officers across the region are being asked to undertake around Covid-19 understanding and compliance.
“This request has been agreed and means that there will be a small number of fully-qualified personnel working across the six authorities for a period of eight weeks.https://get-latest.convrse.media/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.liverpoolecho.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fliverpool-news%2Farmy-called-help-make-sure-19152706%3Futm_source%3Dtwitter.com%26utm_medium%3Dsocial%26utm_campaign%3Dsharebar%26fbclid%3DIwAR076zTjxbpEKS95WGt_I22espbnltue9PMDJnnzd09c5-RleBIxxrURT70&cre=center&cip=8
“They will not be in uniform; they are being deployed to provide additional capacity on a time-limited basis for each of our environmental health teams, carrying out the same duties as our permanent EH personnel.”
Environmental health teams have been responsible for inspecting businesses to ensure they are complying with regulations throughout the crisis and assisting with contact tracing to identify clusters of infections.
The government has previously said soldiers could be brought in to provide logistics support or perform back office functions for the police so officers can be deployed onto the streets.
However, these appear to be the first troops deployed to help environmental health teams.