Lincolnshire Police has thanked county residents for being compliant with lockdown rules.

But since the pandemic started, the service has issued almost 600 tickets to those who have not.

With most residents following government guidance, this has allowed officers to carry on with usual duties rather than spending time dealing with those breaching the rules.

Lincolnshire Police says some of its priorities include locating high risk missing people, dealing with daily incidents such as violence, road traffic collisions and tracking down our most wanted people. These are just a handful of our calls for service that fill our officers' time.

Due to a majority of residents following the guidelines and rules, it has have been able to place more resources into various incidents.

These have included an assault in Sleaford Road, Boston on Sunday (17th Jan), in which a man was taken to hospital. Officers swiftly arrested a man (28) and a woman (41) on suspicion of assault and they have since been bailed.

And in its ongoing work to target high-harm offenders, it has also located six of our Most Wanted people: https://www.lincs.police.uk/news-campaigns/news-and-campaigns/2020/lincolnshires-most-wanted/

However, there have been some occasions where fines have been issued to those who have shown blatant disregard for the rules and regulations.

Some 576 fines have been issued from the beginning of the first lockdown in March last year, to 17th January.

Some of its most recent fines were given to eight people from different households who thought it was acceptable to have a party in a one-man tent in Oftlers Plantation in Woodhall Spa. Our officers attended soon after 11pm on January 16th and handed them fines.

On another occasion, a 45-year-old male was issued a fixed penalty notice during the early hours of January 9th. The man drove from Chesterfield to do a countrywide road trip, to see the Lincoln City Football Ground.

Assistant Chief Constable Kerrin Wilson said: "We've got a brilliant community spirit across Lincolnshire.

"By and large everybody has been patient and they are doing their utmost to make sure that we are as a county looking after the vulnerable and being as safe as we can.

"We do however have a number of Covid breaches that are increasing here in Lincolnshire and that takes a toll on our officers to be able to deal with them.

"Some of them are quite flagrant breaches such as parties in the woods, or people travelling to go and visit a football stadium. That is breaking the rules, and we are dealing with those very robustly.

"But we do have a number of people who are bending the rules as well and that might be as simple as having an extra support bubble, or just meeting somebody to go for a coffee or inviting somebody into your house to have coffee.

"That's putting people at risk so it's those bending the rules that are actually adding to the potential spread of this virus, at the moment. So I'd just urge you to consider that, because by and large, we have been really, really good in this county.

"We've got some great news on the horizon with the rollout of the vaccines and the vaccine centres across the county, but we do need to be considerate of our behaviour, because there's still some hurdles to get through until we get everybody vaccinated.

"Until we do that, policing still needs to continue, and I don't have a separate team of people who deal with all of Covid breaches. They are the officers who are preventing harm and serious injury and dealing with criminalities across the county, so they're dealing with organised criminals they're dealing with drug offences, violent offences, domestic abuse, safeguarding children; all of that are the same officers, and I would prefer to send them to those people who are really in need, as opposed to Covid breaches.

"So if you're not breaching then I won't need to send people out but what I do want to say is a big, big thank you to everybody who is working with us to try and keep our communities safe."