Fylde Council has announced that it is adding two new mobile testing Units to its armoury in the fight against Covid-19. Elswick and Staining Village Halls will join William Segar Hodgson Pavilion in Kirkham and Rawstorne Sports Centre in Freckleton as mobile testing units on selected dates throughout March.

These sites are in addition to the permanent facility at Fairhaven Road Car Park to ensure everyone across the borough has easy access to testing.

William Segar Hodgson Pavilion (Kirkham):

• Saturday 6^th – Sunday 7^th
• Wednesday 17^th – Thursday 18^th
• Monday 29^th – Tuesday 30^th

Rawstorne Sports Centre (Freckleton):

• Wednesday 3^rd – Thursday 4^th
• Thursday 11^th – Friday 12^th
• Tuesday 23^rd – Wednesday 24^th

Elswick Village Hall:

• Friday 5^th
• Monday 15^th
• Sunday 28^th

Staining Village Hall:

• Wednesday 10^th
• Tuesday 16^th
• Sunday 21^st – Monday 22^nd

In addition to increased testing for people with symptoms, Fylde Council also has four SMART testing sites for key workers and those that cannot work from home.

This includes supermarket staff, taxi drivers, teachers, nursery nurses, emergency services staff, those that work in manufacturing and many more.

There is evidence that one in three people won’t get any of the classic or newer symptoms, meaning they could be spreading the virus to colleagues, customers or their family asymptomatically.

The SMART centres are located across the borough here:

• Monday – AFC Fylde Education Centre, Mill Farm, Kirkham
• Wednesday – St Cuthbert’s Church Hall, Church Road, Lytham
• Thursday – St Anne’s United Reformed Church, St George’s Road, St Anne’s
• Friday – Kirkham Community Centre, Mill Street, Kirkham

Swabbing and processing takes place onsite and the results are available within the hour.

Councillor Karen Buckley, Leader of Fylde Borough Council, said: ‘We are constantly adding to our testing capacity in order to continue to find and isolate cases of Covid-19 to stop the spread in our borough. Case rates have fallen consistently in Fylde in recent weeks, which is really encouraging, but we must continue to increase testing capacity to ensure we drive down the spread of this virus while the vaccine is being rolled out. Our teams here have worked incredibly hard to ensure that testing sites are in convenient locations with the addition of the SMART testing sites for key workers and those that cannot work from home. As we all work towards the dates on the Government roadmap we must persevere to ensure the four tests are met at each stage of the plan.’