Military to turn Wickham Community Centre into new mobile coronavirus testing hub

Wickham Community Centre is to become the latest mobile testing hub as the area steps up efforts to combat the spread of Covid-19.

The operation will begin on Sunday, July 26, with armed forces personnel being stationed at the building, in Mill Lane, two days a week.

The news was broken tonight over the community hub’s Facebook page. In a statement posted online, the centre said: ‘As you may be aware the community centre was approached, and agreed to be a mobile testing centre for local people, to help make Britain free of Covid-19.

‘The testing centre will only be operational for two days a week, starting on Sunday 26th of July. ‘It will be a military-supervised site, and people will drive up and be tested without getting out of their vehicles.

‘As they are attending the site to be tested for Covid-19, they will have been instructed to self-isolate until their test results come through and so won't be visiting the village or any other locations.’

The news comes as fresh figures this evening revealed the number of new confirmed Covid-19 cases across the area continues to fall.

The latest government statistics cover tests carried out in laboratories and in the wider community between July 3 and July 10,

In Portsmouth, the number of new cases per 100,000 population was 1.4, down from 3.3 the previous week.

Havant's dropped from 0.8 to zero, while Fareham saw a decline from 5.2 to 0.9. Gosport’s rate also decreased, from 4.7 to 1.2, figures released last night showed.

Last week, Portsmouth City Council leader Gerald Vernon-Jackson hailed the island as ‘one of the UK’s safest cities’ with just three new confirmed cases.

Sailors from HMS Prince of Wales have been among those manning seven mobile coronavirus testing sites across Hampshire.

Reserve soldiers from the 4th Battalion, The Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment – which has a company based in Cosham – have also been involved in testing people.

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