Grantham to be national coronavirus training centre

Soldiers from across the UK, helping to run coronavirus test centres, will be trained in Grantham.

The national training site for the Covid-19 support team is to be based at Prince William of Gloucester Barracks, formerly RAF Spitalgate.

It is expected to turn out about 160 trained personnel a day.

Brigadier Lizzie Faithfull-Davies, commanding officer of 102 Logistic Brigade, told BBC Lincolnshire there are some challenges with the test centres.

“They are a very new initiative. We only designed them about 10 days ago and the scale of the roll-out is significant,” she said.

“We originally started with a target of 48 of these mobile testing units. That’s doubled already to 96 by 4 May.

“The challenge for our personnel is becoming familiar with the equipment and recognising the need to create a bespoke mobile set-up depending on the location they arrive at,” she added.