PUPILS in Blackburn with Darwen's schools should continue to wear facemasks even after the rules are relaxed next week.

Parents are being told that the national lifting of the obligation for children to use coverings will not apply in the borough because of high and rising coronavirus rates and the spread of the Indian variant.

They are being sent a letter explaining the move signed by the council's education director Jayne Ivory, Cllr Julie Gunn (executive member for children and young people), and public health director Professor Dominic Harrison.

It tells parents: "On Monday, the Prime Minister announced changes linked to England’s progress along the roadmap out of lockdown. This included the intention to relax measures for the use of face coverings in schools from Monday.

"The exception to this is for those areas where there are local outbreaks.

"In our locality and in neighbouring areas there are cases of a variant of the virus that causes Covid-19. This variant is spreading quickly and has contributed to a rapid increase in the number of people with Covid-19.

"Blackburn with Darwen Council has asked schools here to retain the use of face coverings, as per the current arrangements, until further notice.

"As we now have more detailed analysis of case finding across the North-West, we know that there have been instances where young people attending school or college have unintentionally contributed to the spread of the virus.

"Our advisors believe it would be irresponsible to wait until we have higher levels of the newer variants circulating before we act.

"We know that this will be understandably disappointing for our pupils."