Two more West Norfolk pubs offer premises for Covid-19 vaccinations

Two more West Norfolk pubs have volunteered their premises to help speed up the Covid-19 vaccination roll-out.

Landlords at The Crown in Gayton, and The Jolly Brewers in Shouldham Thorpe, joined The Bank House in Lynn to offer a place for vaccinations to be administered.

Lisa Staples, landlady of The Crown pub, is due to speak on BBC Radio 2's The Jeremy Vine Show at midday today. She said: "I saw a tweet from Kate Nicholson about using hotels for the vaccine roll-out and I thought, hang on a minute, we've got pubs up and down the country and they are ideal for it.

"They've been Covid-secure since March, lots of parking, big fridges and there's one in every village. All we need is the people who are qualified to administer the vaccine."

She added: "A pub is the community so if we can diversify and help with the roll-out, it's much better than twiddling our thumbs and waiting to reopen. It's in our interests as well, the sooner this vaccine is out, the sooner we can get back to normal."

Several landlords across the area have voiced their support for rolling out the vaccine as quickly as possible.

Adam Noble, landlord of The Jolly Brewers in Shouldham Thorpe, said: "Vaccination is the key to moving forwards and our communities need to move forwards. It makes perfect sense to utilise our space and other community venues. Our offer was driven by the fact that we are in the community, we are safe places with plenty of space and parking."

West Norfolk's pubs have remained supportive of the community throughout lockdown closures in 2020.

Earlier in the summer, Lisa also offered out rooms at The Crown pub in Gayton to NHS workers who had been drafted to work at Lynn's Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

Lisa said: "I hadn't realised that when NHS staff are seconded they don't get accommodation so in the summer we had a number of NHS workers staying with us."