A KEIGHLEY councillor and doctor has warned of the impact of lockdown on many retired people.

Paul Godwin, who represents Keighley West on Bradford Council, said people had become increasingly frustrated and “absolutely driven into the ground” by the restrictions.

He was speaking at a meeting of the council’s health and social care scrutiny committee, where members were told that according to data from the Office of National Statistics, people in the 50-69 age bracket were most likely to break lockdown restrictions.

Ian Day ­– the council’s assistant director for neighbourhood and customer services – said young people were feeling stigmatised as ‘super spreaders’ of Covid-19, but that older people were more likely to flout the rules and “just pop round to visit a relative who lives two doors down because they have always done that”.

Cllr Godwin said: “You have to consider that in Bradford from April to now, we have been in lockdown essentially.”

Pointing out that he fell into that older age bracket, he added: “I was sitting in my house looking at four walls all day every day while my wife was away looking after her mother. If you have done that from April until now, you can imagine the frustration of our population.

“I have been able to go to work as a doctor, but for people who don’t have a large house and a garden like me they have been absolutely driven into the ground by this. They’ve had no respite since the beginning of April and it really is a frustrating, miserable process that they have been subjected to.

“It is now really difficult for people who have had this for eight months and I suspect in reality it will be a year by the time we’re out of this process.

“What we’ve done is bang people up in that age group all year, with nothing to do. They don’t work, they’re stuck at home, they can’t visit their family, they can’t do anything except sit and look at the four walls and watch television. No, what a miserable existence that has been.”

Sarah Muckle, Bradford’s director of public health, said she agreed that there would be “some real mental health issues" to deal with.

England will return to a tiered system of restrictions when the latest national lockdown ends next week.