England banned from Easter holidays in Wales
People in England will not be allowed to holiday in Wales when self-catered accommodation reopens at Easter, First Minister Mark Drakeford has said.
Drakeford told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that he hoped tourism would be open to people outside of Wales by the summer if coronavirus cases continue to fall at the current rate.
“At Easter time, Welsh people will be able to travel for holidays over Easter within Wales, and to self-contained accommodation,” the Welsh leader said.
“The rules in England will not permit that. The Prime Minister’s roadmap says that for the weeks after 29 March, people should minimise travel, there are to be no holidays, and people won’t be allowed to stay away from home overnight,” Drakeford added.
“If it won’t be safe to stay overnight in England, then obviously it would not be safe for people to travel into Wales.”
He added that rental business owners should not be taking bookings from people who live outside Wales, and warned that he will hold discussions with Welsh police “to see if there is anything we need to do to mobilise our own enforcement authorities”.
“If the industry were to act irresponsibly, the penalty would be we wouldn’t be able to carry on reopening the industry,” Drakeford said.
Overnight stays will not be back on the cards for people in England until at least 12 April, according to the Prime Minister’s roadmap for lifting lockdown restrictions.
Stay at home orders in the UK are set to expire in just over a fortnight on 29 March, but those wishing to travel overseas will have to wait at least another two months until they are allowed to do so.
International travel will only begin again from 17 May at the earliest, once a travel taskforce helps to put in place a scheme to allow trips abroad with reduced risk of bringing mutant variants back into the UK.
It is thought Boris Johnson’s roadmap was deigned to avoid a surge in holiday bookings over the Easter period, with a wide scale relaxation of household mixing rules not set to come into force until after Easter Sunday on 4 April.