Okehampton Town Counci has been accused of scaremongering the public in a letter asking the council to remove the ‘fear boards’ in the town.

In an anonymous letter, the council was asked to remove the covid signage in the town asking people to ‘keep [their] distance’ because it was no longer relevant and was ‘scar[ing] the living daylights out of the poor elderly people.’

But the council voted to keep the signage up since the pandemic was still ongoing and many of the vulnerable were still isolating despite the national relaxation in covid restrictions.

The council will review the situation in the spring when it is thought that covid case numbers will decrease with the warmer weather.