The Cheshire East Council leader has called on the government to allow local authorities to impose the kinds of restrictions announced today, instead of a "blanket imposition".

Cllr Sam Corcoran also repeated his call for the track and trace system to be localised following issues with the current centralised model.

He told Nub News: "I would like to see local authorities being able to impose the kinds of restrictions that the government is currently imposing because we would know what's right for Macclesfield may not necessarily be right for Mobberley.

"So just to put in place a blanket imposition of a 10pm curfew may not be the right thing for the whole country."

The Sandbach councillor added that he is "pleased" that takeaway restaurants will have to operate a delivery-only service beyond 10pm to prevent potential congregations once pubs and bars had closed.

The Track and Trace system was another area of concern for Cllr Corcoran, who believes that would also be better operated by the council.

He said: "It's very badly organised at the moment and I think that local authorities could do a much better job.

"Two private companies run the system and they have a contact rate of around 60%. They then pass the contacts that they can't reach onto the local authorities and we follow-up the other 40%. I think up to June they were paid £10 billion for the service and local authorities have been paid only £300 million."

Cllr Corcoran added: "We're doing all of the difficult work, but the private companies are getting paid for it. Given they're not doing a good job of it, why not let local authorities do a good job."

The Labour group leader said that while the council does have the in-house expertise for contact tracing, this would need to be "scaled up" if they were to take complete responsibility.

Asked whether the council should take control of testing Cllr Corcoran said: "Certainly we should be able to direct where the temporary testing stations should be set up; that part should be under local control."