HALE has become one of Greater Manchester’s top 10 coronavirus case ‘hotspots’.

Trafford had 85 new cases of Covid-19 last week –  with eight new cases declared in Hale between July 20 and 26.

It means the ward was one of the top 10 for new coronavirus cases in Greater Manchester during that period.

In an interview on BBC Radio 5Live, council leader Cllr Andrew Western announced the ward had an infection rate of around 95 per 100,000 people.

According to data from Public Health England, when areas like Urmston and Sale are taken as a whole, their case rates are also high.

The two wards in Urmston, Urmston East and Urmston West, had nine cases between them. Sale’s wards (north, east, central and Sale Moor) had 12.

Coun Western announced Trafford had the fifth highest COVID-19 case rate per 100,000 people in the UK last week.

He said: “For those who aren’t aware after a sudden rise in cases amongst young people in Trafford (initially starting in Hale and Hale Barns, now broadening) we currently have the fifth highest rate of cases per 100,000 in the country.”

A Trafford Council spokeman said: “Over the past seven days Trafford has had one of the highest rates of increase of infection in the UK and local health officials are urging residents to stick to the new rules in order to drive down the number of infections.”

Eleanor Roaf, Trafford’s director of public health, attributed the rise to a growing number of young people coming forward to get tested, as well as changes made to the lockdown measures by government last month.

The infection rate in Trafford had jumped from 8.8 infections per 100,000 people in the middle of July, to 39 per 100,000 last week.

New data is due to be released later today by Public Health England for the last seven days which will show new individual cases counts.