The chairman of Sidmouth Town Council has been interviewed live on Sky News about the unusually low number of Covid cases in the town.

Cllr Ian Barlow appeared at peak viewing time, 8.20am this morning (Friday, March 11), after Sidmouth was dubbed 'the seaside town that Covid forgot' in an article in The Times.

Until recently, no cases had been recorded in the town since January.

Asked why he thought Sidmouth had escaped a spread of the virus in the community, Cllr Barlow said the town's older population had the wisdom and experience to obey the rules and respect social distancing – and also, because Sidmouth is such a beautiful place, people there wanted to live longer.

He said his council had reacted quickly to the pandemic, working with the community and Chamber of Commerce to introduce measures such as pedestrianisation to keep people safe, and he paid tribute to the work of the district and county councils.

He said Sidmouth had also been lucky to have such a high vaccination rate.

Cllr Barlow was also asked about the Covid outbreak in the Holmesley care home on the outskirts of the town, one of whose residents has died.

He said this was an 'incredibly sad' situation, but perhaps would have been worse if the care home's residents had not all been vaccinated, and fortunately the virus had not spread outside Holmesley.