Popular Northampton pub to remain shut over the weekend as precautionary closure continues

A popular Northampton pub that chose to close as a precautionary measure will remain closed for a while longer as staff self-isolate.

The Hart in Harlestone Road, Duston closed from Friday (July 24), and remains closed now, after a member of staff received a positive Covid-19 test result following symptoms.

NHS Test and Trace contacted the employee to acquire a list of people they had been in close contact with for more than 15 minutes, which included the rest of the pub’s staff as the employee worked on the previous busy weekend.

The pub has a total of 12 members of staff and, although displaying no symptoms, they were asked to self-isolate for 14 days by Test and Trace to limit the risk of spreading the virus.

Michael Thomas, director of the pub said: “We handed over all our customer’s details to NHS Test and Trace and they made the decision not to contact them.

“There is strict protocol around this and it is not our decision to make, whether to contact customers or not.

“Test and Trace were happy with our measures that are in place so we were allowed to stay open. We could have brought in staff from one of our other pub’s.

“It was a harsh decision but we decided to close as precaution and as it’s summer and busy so we didn’t want to take employees from elsewhere.

"We didn’t have enough people to open safely and effectively this weekend and it would be irresponsible to open with understaffed chaos."

The member of staff who tested positive is fine and healthy and can start work from this Thursday (July 30) after self-isolating for seven days, which is the advised amount of time after a positive test.

However, the other self-isolating employees will not be able to return to work as soon, so the pub will not open until the earliest of Monday (August 3).

Michael added: “We are looking at the 3rd as a potential reopening date. It certainly will not be before then, but it might be after.

“When we do decide to reopen, we will have, of course, deep cleaned the pub thoroughly beforehand.”

Follow The Hart, Duston on Facebook to keep up to date with the latest reopening plans.

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