THIS is the Bolton father-of-four who triggered the national debate as to whether his hometown was or was not subject to new 'lockdown restrictions'.

The Bolton News has spoken to Ian Brown who brought the new, now slightly amended, travel advice to the country's attention, which sparked confusion within the town and other areas where the Indian variant is said to be 'spreading fast' by the Government.

And as the explosive claims made by Dominic Cummings continue to send shockwaves through the the Government, he urged ministers not to repeat the mistakes of the past.

Commodore Brown and other committee members at The Delph Sailing Club in Turton were alerted to the guidelines 'buried' in a Government online covid advice page.

Mr Brown, who lives in Bromley Cross said: "I do not want to get overly political but if decisions need to be taken, they need to be taken at the right time and not two or three weeks later

"We need to be given clear advice and for not the mistakes to be repeated and not for more lives to be lost."

The 48-year-old who works in television production, said his issue was the lack of clarity ­— which ultimately led the popular sailing club cancelling a popular young person's event next Saturday.

Although it has since been clarified there is no local lockdown, the guidance has only been tweaked.

He said: "I didn’t really sleep on Sunday night, I was thinking was I misinterpreting it there are other people running things like I do and there is confusion ­— people not knowing whether they can visit relatives, my beef is entirely about the communications and delivery of it. Why was it buried and not announced it properly saying 'we would rather you just do these three things it will help contain the variant. And blow it out a bit quicker'."

Mr Brown said after discovering the guidance on Sunday, the committee took the decision to cancel the event, because of the large number of volunteers ­— not all who would have been vaccinated ­— needed to run the event and the amount of young people attending as infection rates among children is increasing.

"We would have preferred it if we had clear advice because we have to justify why we have done it, rather than saying we have done it because of we are complying with legislation."

He added: "If I send guidance to my members and somebody comes back and says they don’t understand this bit, I will send a clarification out.

"It is being a sensible adult.

"We need clear advice to follow, but if it is going to be murky and unclear and buried on a website , it is no good to anyone.

"No one wants this variant in Bolton to get out of control, everyone is queuing up too have the vaccinations.

"The guidance has just been tweaked it a bit, now instead of avoiding all but essential travel, it is saying you should minimise travel, it is just semantics."

Mr Brown added: "My mum and dad went to see my brother in Stoke and they saw my nephew and nieces for the first time in months and when I told my mum she might have broken the guidance she was distraught, saying the had been abiding by the rules.

“I told her I was only ribbing, but now we have found this out would you have done it

“Everyone wants to do the right thing, they don’t want to put anyone in danger and but at the same time we are desperate to get back to normal life and we want this to be over.

"I am not in public health I am not an epidemiologist, I am not going to say what we can and cannot do, my issue is with the communication of this."

He added: "I did get a recognition from a minister that maybe they could do things better."