The government is being urged to move swiftly to recognise the four counties of the far South West as a region in their own right.

Veteran Devon MP Sir Gary Streeter has written to the Prime Minister, with the backing for MPs from across Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, Devon, Somerset and Dorset.

His letter is prompted by the news that the Government intends to delay any decision until after the forthcoming White Paper on Devolution.

Leaders of the Great South West campaign met the Prime Minister in Downing Street in November last year. They explained the background to their campaign to win recognition for the four counties as a bloc.

Sir Gary said the campaign was supported by the three local enterprise partnerships, all local authorities and all MPs in the region.

“Since 2016, an alliance of all stakeholders behind this project has been painstakingly put in place.” Sir Gary said. This included the Western Morning News, one of our sister print titles.

His letter to the Prime Minister, copied to the Chancellor, the Communities Secretary and the Chief Whip, asks for recognition of the Great South West region now and not after the White Paper on devolution has run its course. Sir Gary said that could result in a delay of up to 18 months.

All the MPs from across the region have given their support, though Sir Gary did not ask Ministers or shadow Ministers to endorse the letter.

“We feel we have waited long enough,” Sir Gary said. “We need this now so we can speak coherently to the Government, and the Government can speak to us.

“I think our region is going to be one of the hardest hit economically by the pandemic, and it will be significant to have a framework for the Government to talk to.

“It has taken a long time to put together this alliance of LEPs, local authorities and business communities. We need to see some success for this campaign to ensure that we keep the alliance together.”

The past couple of years has seen the rise of regional blocs such as the Northern Powerhouse and the Midlands Engine.

“The Government very much likes strategic collaboration and devolution,” Sir Gary said. “We are pushing at an open door.”

In his letter, Sir Gary said the Great South West campaign had put together a “compelling prospectus for growth” in its Securing our Future document. That was launched and submitted before the last election.

“It strongly supports the government’s levelling up agenda by delivering a massive £45 billion boost to the regional economy and creating 190,000 new jobs by 2035,” Sir Gary writes.

“We were pleased to learn that at the Downing Street meeting in November you gave your whole-hearted support to this project.”

He said that Steve Hindley, chair of the Great South West steering group, wrote recently to the Communities Secretary to reiterate the urgency of granting the regional recognition and seedcorn funding needed, “not least to help us recover from the impact of Covid-19”.

He added: “It was a huge disappointment for us to learn last week that the government is not proposing to grant us recognition at this time, but intends to delay any decision until after the forthcoming White Paper on Devolution has been issued and consulted upon, which could easily result in a delay of possibly a year or more.

“There is a strong feeling in our region that other regional groupings have been recognised and supported and that once again, the South West is being short-changed.

“We are writing to draw to your personal attention to the strength of feeling across the region about this matter, and to urge government to release the full potential of the Great South West and the many benefits to our constituents by granting recognition immediately – even if this has to be fine-tuned once the White Paper and subsequent legislation has taken place.”

Boris Johnson is under mounting pressure to force people to wear face coverings in shops.

The commercial investments, many acquired in a £7.6bn property spending spree in England over the past four years, were part of councils’ effort to find alternative incomes and protect local services that faced cuts or closure during a decade of deep austerity cuts.

But with Covid-19 lockdown measures closing shops, workplaces and cinemas and leaving some airports deserted, councils’ rents and other revenues have been affected, with two authorities – Manchester city council and Luton council – losing £100m in airport dividends alone.

A Guardian analysis of council finances using data from the Institute for Fiscal Studies indicates more than 30 local authorities receive at least a quarter of their annual income, which they spend on services, from commercial investments.

On Monday a group of MPs will warn that some authorities have taken on “extreme” levels of debt to finance their commercial property spree, risking cuts to services and a big bill for local taxpayers. Members of the public accounts committee (PAC) are criticisal of the government for failing to rein in a handful of councils that have each borrowed more than £1bn to build up their property portfolio.

English councils estimate they will lose £624m in commercial investment income this year as a direct result of the Covid-19 crisis. The government is refusing to offer financial support to cover the shortfall, putting pressure on highly exposed councils to balance their budgets through reserves or service and job cuts.

MPs said the government had been “blind to the level of exposure of the local government sector” to commercial investments, risking a repeat of the Icelandic banks scandal in 2008 when 108 councils from England, Scotland and Wales lost hundreds of millions of pounds in deposits when Iceland’s banking system collapsed.

Meg Hillier, the chair of the PAC, said ministers should bear some of the blame for councils’ reliance on rents from offices and shops. “The [Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG)] did not even bother to keep track of the underlying numbers or likely risk but at the end of the day, central government will have to step in if a council fails,” she said.

The most notorious of the property speculators is tiny Spelthorne district council in Surrey, which has built up a £1bn portfolio in four years, snapping up assets such as BP’s head offices at Sunbury-on-Thames for £380m.

Conservative-led councils in south-east England are among the most exposed, accounting for more than half of the commercial property acquired between 2016 and 2019.

Other council investments include petrol stations, supermarkets and, from Ashford borough council in Kent, a cinema complex. Thurrock council in Essex has invested more than £700m, borrowed from other councils, in renewable energy projects.

Aside from borrowing to fund commercial property speculation, councils have put energy and resources into developing assets such as airports to offset the cuts to budgets. In many cases they proved lucrative for both the council and local area, creating thousands of jobs, until the pandemic hit.

Luton borough council, which is reliant on itsincome from London Luton airport to fund just under a quarter of the town’s essential services, is to hold an emergency meeting on Tuesday to approve a £17m cuts plan, including the loss of 365 jobs – more than one in 10 of the council’s roster.

“We were hoping we were coming out of years of austerity when Covid-19 struck,” said Hazel Simmons, the leader of Luton council. The pandemic has wiped out the airport’s passenger and freight traffic, eliminating £30m in dividends due to the council, as the airport’s owner, over the next two years.

The council describes the airport as a “financial lifeline” after its grant funding shrank from £130m to £10m. Over the same period, its annual income from the airport rose from £7.6m to £33m. Under current proposals, any loss of this income will not be covered by central government. Without it, said Simmons, “we would have had to make the cuts we are forced to do now a few years ago, and probably more.”

The council’s proposed £17m cuts to local services over the next few months will affect day centres for older and disabled people, parenting support, neighbourhood enforcement teams and school improvement. “It’s the worst time of my whole tenure,” said Simmons, a councillor since 1991. “We don’t want to do any of those things.”

Luton, which has the second highest reliance on commercial income of any English council, has approached the government for help, pointing out the strategic importance of the airport, but has so far had no response.

Manchester city council, together with nine neighbouring councils in the region, owns 65% of the holding company which operates Manchester, Stansted and East Midlands airports. This year the city council – paid a year in arrears – received an airports dividend of £70m; next April this will be zero.

Spelthorne council told MPs it had launched its property investments to reverse the effects of a decade of cuts. Without its commercial income stream, it said, the government would have to “take over the running of councils directly as they cannot survive without adequate funding”.

Spelthorne rejected concerns it was over-exposed, saying it had received 90% of tenants’ rents for the March quarter and built up substantial reserves. “We believe the council’s ability to withstand the current Covid-19 storm will prove to be the strongest possible demonstration of the council’s robust approach to risk mitigation,” a spokesperson said.

Richard Watts, the chair of the Local Government Association’s resources board, said the government should compensate councils for lost income from commercial investments. “Councils have faced a choice of either accepting funding reductions and cutting services or making investments to try and protect them. As the committee rightly highlights, this was an approach that was encouraged by government,” he said.

The government said it shared concerns about highly exposed councils. “Councils are responsible for managing their finances and must properly consider the risks and opportunities when they make commercial decisions,” an MHCLG spokesperson said.

However, the PAC is scathing of the ministry’s failure to monitor the surge in cheap borrowing by councils from the Public Works Loan Board, a government-backed funding source, or the risks this entails for local services, a problem it first signalled in a 2016 report.

The MHCLG’s promise to tighten up the guidance to prevent councils taking huge, borderline legal risks on commercial investments was not reassuring, the PAC report says. “Ultimately these proposals are four years late and many billions of pounds in borrowing and potentially risky investments too late.”

The Conservative MP and group vice-chair, Dan Poulter, said: “It is important that we learn lessons about what things we can do better ahead of the difficult winter months that lie ahead.

“This winter, we are likely to face a second wave of coronavirus coupled with seasonal flu virus and it is vital that our health and care system is fully prepared for what is likely to come.”

Rural firms need Government help to deal with their coronavirus ‘debt mountain’ to prevent further job losses, Devon restaurateur and campaigner Mitch Tonks has warned.

An estimated 2,280 bank and building society branches — about one in eight — also closed, although many are now open again. Senior banking executives are discussing the widespread closure of branches, according to our sources.

Sunday Times Money understands that the situation has become so critical that the Treasury is preparing legislation that would force banks to provide all customers with free-to-use ATMs within a reasonable distance from their homes.

Cash withdrawals in May fell by half compared with the same month last year, Link data shows, after reaching a record low of £945 million in the last week of March, the first time withdrawals fell below £1 billion since 2005.

Some of the most deprived regions in the country had the smallest declines in cash withdrawals, including constituencies such as Birmingham Hodge Hill and Liverpool Walton. The drop was most pronounced in city centres — central Glasgow fell 80 per cent, and the figure hit 89 per cent in Westminster and the City of London.

Some ATMs were closed because operators were unable to get access to the safe behind machines located on the wall of shops or petrol stations that had to shut.

Those in locations such as cinemas, theme parks, bingo halls and holiday parks are still unavailable and cannot be accessed by security vans for refills. In many cases the switch to contactless card payments means that usage is expected to fall to the point where the machines will become unsustainable.

In pubs, garden centres and convenience stores that have reopened, hundreds of ATMs lie empty because they rely on the premises’ owners to fill them. Normally retailers would use money from their tills to keep the machine stocked up, but thanks to a surge in digital and card payments rather than cash, they do not have enough.

Even as the hospitality sector reopened in England last week, consumers took out a third less cash than usual, with £1.6 billion withdrawn compared with £2.4 billion this time last year.

Natalie Ceeney, who led a government-commissioned review into access to cash in 2018, said that she is regularly contacted by communities where the loss of a free ATM has caused serious hardship. She said: “Before lockdown our cash infrastructure was already on a knife edge. We know that the places most dependent on cash are the most rural and poorest communities across the UK.

“The loss of thousands of cash machines during the past three months shows just how urgently we need action from the government and banks.

“Quite simply, digital payments don’t yet work for everyone, and maintaining the UK’s cash infrastructure is essential to stop millions being left behind.”

Between July and December last year 1,670 cash machines closed permanently. The town of Bungay in Norfolk lost its last bank branch when Lloyds closed two years ago and the council hashad to install a cash machine at the town hall.

The town’s recently elected mayor, Bob Prior, 71, said that he rarely uses cash, but the high proportion of elderly residents in the village rely on it. Market stalls that visit the town every Thursday find that the mobile and internet signal is too poor to make their portable contactless machines work and still do much of their transactions in cash.

Towns such as Durness in Scotland, Tywyn in Wales, and Deal and Margate in Kent have also had to fight to keep a cash machine.

John Howells, the chief executive of Link, said: “Link is expecting some ATMs not to reopen, mainly where the locations that they are in do not reopen, or where machines next to others are removed to maintain social distancing.

“In all cases the public can be reassured that Link will take action to maintain overall coverage and that all high streets large and small will continue to have free access to cash.”

The Treasury said: “We know that many individuals and businesses still rely on cash, which is why we’re co-ordinating work across government, regulators and industry, so we can protect access for everyone who needs it, and have committed to bring forward legislation. Part of this work includes investing over £2 billion in the Post Office since 2010, giving people across the country local access to everyday banking services.”

As evidence mounts that the relaxation of lockdown rules is leading to a resurgence of Covid-19 in some of England’s most deprived and ethnically mixed areas, officials have ordered the army to deploy extra mobile testing units, which will be sent into a series of hotspots around the country from this weekend.

Public Health England (PHE), the country’s lead infection control agency, briefed local government health chiefs last week that ministers were considering publishing a ranking of the 10 councils most affected by new outbreaks, which could be released within days. Councils fear the data will be used to enforce more local lockdowns of the kind imposed in Leicester, where all but essential shops must stay shut, schoolchildren have been sent home, and pubs and restaurants remain closed.

The top 10 ranking is likely to be based on a document circulated to local health chiefs on Thursday, headed “official sensitive”. The chart, compiled by PHE and reproduced here, ranks the 20 councils with the highest proportion of positive cases. Leicester remains at its head, with 5.7% of individuals who underwent a test found to have the virus. Kirklees, in West Yorkshire, was not far behind, with a 5% rate. Bradford, and Blackburn with Darwen in Lancashire, were the next highest.

Titled “local authority areas of interest”, the table is based on testing between 21 June and 4 July. It identifies six areas of “concern”. More serious cases are labelled as needing “enhanced support”, with three councils in this category. One – Leicester – is listed as requiring “intervention”.

The document states “these areas are currently under investigation by the local public health protection teams”. “Testing access is being increased in areas including Bradford”, it says, and the areas listed are “associated with workplace outbreaks which have contributed to the increase in infection rates”.

Last month, 164 workers at a meat factory in Kirklees tested positive, and at the beginning of July, a bed factory in Batley, which is administered by Kirklees Council, was closed after eight workers were found to have the virus.The communities most affected have several factors in common: poverty, poor health and a high proportion of non-white residents.

The top 10 is likely to change daily, although some areas will remain severely affected for weeks, health directors believe.

“Those on the list are going to be characterised by higher deprivation, higher black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) communities and denser housing,” said a public health director briefed on the plans.

“Some are going to be in the list for the whole period of the pandemic. The drivers are structural and demographic, so the pattern of spread will reflect the inequalities that already existed. Some of the most strapped-for-cash councils are going to be dealing with some of the worst outbreaks.”

Areas with large south Asian populations, particularly where several generations may share a home and live in crowded conditions, are among those emerging as particularly at risk.

Bradford has the highest proportion of people of Pakistani origin in England.

The council has today deployed testing units, staffed by the armed forces, to its Bowling and Keighley districts. Residents will be able to be tested without an appointment. Similar units will be deployed in Blackburn and Sheffield.

“Bradford has a higher infection rate than most but it’s coming down due to action we’ve taken,” said council leader Susan Hinchcliffe. “We welcome the dialogue with government. We’re already doing more testing than any other authority in the region, but want to do more.”

Bradford has asked for its own mobile testing units, more environmental health officers, support to pay full wages to low-paid workers having to self-isolate, and funding to develop its own local test-and-trace system.

Officials have not yet outlined what metrics will be used to impose further lockdowns, but it is understood a system based on the German model is under discussion. This would involve a threshold of 50 weekly positive tests per 100,000 of the population in any given council. Once that is breached, special measures could be triggered.

Data made public on Thursday shows Leicester is currently on 116 new cases per 100,000 of population per week, down from 140 two weeks ago.

Rochdale is in second place, with nearly 33 cases, down from over 50 three weeks ago. Kirklees is also suffering high rates, as are Bradford, Blackburn with Darwen, Rotherham and Bedford.

The health secretary, Matt Hancock, announced the UK’s first local lockdown on 29 June as Leicester reported 944 new cases in a fortnight. Non-essential shops and schools were shut, and pubs and restaurants were unable to reopen. Legislation to enforce the restrictions was pushed through parliament.

Desperate to avoid Leicester’s fate, councils are lobbying for a “graded response”, the local public health director said, with a rolling back of some elements of lockdown, such as larger gatherings, rather than closure of whole sectors. “What we want to avoid is the secretary of state making clumsy, unhelpful interventions, so we are getting ahead of the curve, understanding what our problem is and acting to address it. But we are hampered by slow reporting of data and absence of data,” they added.

Councils have only just begun to receive a breakdown of new cases by postcode, and this is arriving weekly. Health chiefs say they need the information daily if they are to spot outbreaks in time to stop them spreading.

The plans to publish a top 10 were discussed on a regional call with Public Health England, two public health directors confirmed. “They seem to be intent on putting it into the public domain,” said one of those on the call. “We have expressed some concerns over how they do it, as the data does need to be interpreted. Nonetheless, I welcome transparency.”

The classified list of 20 at-risk councils uses six metrics including number of cases per 100,000 of population per week and per day, percentage of individuals testing positive as a proportion of all tests, and “exceedances”. This is where councils are issued with a red light because they consistently have more positive cases than forecast by a government algorithm. A slightly lower number of exceedances leads to an amber light.

The chart also shows the number of community outbreaks per council over the last week. Outbreaks are classed as two or more positive tests in a single setting, such as a workplace, school or prison.

The Department of Health and Social Care said it did not have a set trigger, but would use a range of data to decide where and how to act, stating: “We have been transparent about our response to coronavirus and are always looking to improve the data we publish, including the way we update testing statistics.

“The list of the 10 local authorities with the highest weekly incidence of coronavirus is already publicly available in PHE’s weekly surveillance report.

“All councils in England now have the ability to access testing data, right down to an individual and postcode level. If councils feel they require more assistance with data, of course, PHE is able to help them.”

Kirklees and Sheffield councils were approached for comment.

CPRE today sets out our vision to regenerate the countryside and ourselves – and says the government’s plans make a mockery of its ‘so-called green recovery’.

The PM’s ‘new deal’ speech came just a day before CPRE, the countryside charity, launches our own detailed ‘manifesto’ for a green recovery that can support the regeneration of the economy, our wellbeing and the environment. This vision urges the government to use this post-coronavirus moment as an opportunity for real change, laying out recommendations for ways to stimulate the economy while making life greener and more resilient for the countryside and its communities.

Amongst other key proposals, Regenerate our countryside, regenerate ourselves: A manifesto for a resilient countryside after coronavirus emphasises that our Green Belts, the countryside next door for 30 million people, and other countryside around large towns and cities, should see funding significantly increased to make sure they’re used better for people and to help mitigate climate breakdown. It also presses for the support of greener farming techniques that could make our food supply more resilient.

The recommendations in the CPRE manifesto, with their emphasis on sustainable, community-led development and progress, are starkly at odds with Boris Johnson’s proposed approach. Tom Fyans, our campaigns and policy director, said:

‘With road building at its heart, the PM’s “new deal” makes a mockery of the government’s so-called green recovery. At this historic moment, the government must show real ambition and build back better, not worse, and in doing so balance our health and wellbeing, nature and countryside and the economic recovery.’

A greener future – for everyone

The CPRE’s manifesto for a regenerated countryside, future and population is being launched with a virtual debate. Leading countryside and political voices including Philip Dunne MP, chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, Mike Amesbury MP, shadow minister for housing and planning and Caroline Lucas MP, former leader of the Green Party, are speaking at the event.

The manifesto calls for steps towards a resilient countryside with thriving rural communities. But, given the regenerative power of green spaces that became so clear during lockdown, we’re stressing the need for the countryside to be open to everyone, whether visiting, living or working there. This is especially pertinent in the light of the deep inequalities around access to the countryside that coronavirus highlighted.

Natural England’s figures show that children from Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds are 20% less likely than white children to visit the countryside. That’s why our manifesto includes a call for every child to be guaranteed a night in nature in a National Park or Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, as recommended in last year’s Landscapes Review by Julian Glover OBE.

Rhiane Fatinikun, founder of Black Girls Hike and a panellist at the launch, spoke to this element of our work. She said:

‘Representing people of all backgrounds in the countryside really matters … For too long I didn’t even think about connecting with nature, as if the countryside wasn’t for me.

‘Black Girls Hike was set up to change this. Creating a safe space with people who share your experiences, is refreshing but also essential for our wellbeing. We’ll continue breaking down the barriers to nature and the countryside in the hope that more black girls and people of all backgrounds follow us into the great outdoors.’

A ‘once in a generation opportunity’

At the event, CPRE president Emma Bridgewater summarised what we feel this historic moment can offer, and what we want to see for a green and inclusive future:

‘We’re calling on the government to seize this once in a generation opportunity to put the countryside and access to green spaces at the heart of the recovery. That means putting the Green Belt ahead of developers’ profit margins, guaranteeing children’s education includes quality time in nature and breaking down the barriers to the countryside for groups previously excluded.

‘But we also need to make sure rural communities don’t bear the brunt of the economic fallout by supporting the rural economy and investing in rural social housing. Only then can the government claim to be learning the lessons of lockdown and building back better.’

It is hard to see the US epidemic as caused by anything other than poor leadership. The US is one of the world’s richest nations with a highly developed public health infrastructure but it was slow to react initially and then too quick to open up.

Confused messaging from the White House has left some of the 328 million population terrified and others wondering if the virus really exists at all. Violence and protest caused by the killing of George Floyd will not have helped.

Professor Raina MacIntyre, an expert in influenza and emerging infectious diseases at the University of South New Wales, said the situation was more serious than in late March.

“It is possible there has been seeding of infection to other states, and silent epidemic growth which has not yet been detected. I would not be surprised to see epidemics detected in New South Wales and other states within the next few weeks,” she said.

Prof Balloux said rising case numbers in Victoria provided “putative evidence” for a seasonal influence on the virus. The “apparent ‘winter wave’” would be in line with the “dynamic for seasonal influenza and other respiratory pathogens in the southern hemisphere”, he added.

Israel – the danger of opening up too early

On Sunday Israel’s head of public health, Dr Siegal Sadetzki, said the country was experiencing a second wave of Covid-19 after more than 977 cases were registered.

On Tuesday she resigned and was scathing of the government’s response, saying it had opened up too early, against her advice.

“The achievements in dealing with the first wave [of infections] were cancelled out by the broad and swift opening of the economy,” said Dr Sadetzki shortly after announcing her resignation.

However, at the beginning of June the number of daily infections began to rise again and on Wednesday it recorded the highest number of new cases during the pandemic – 555.

President Klaus Iohannis said if the numbers continue to rise he may be forced to put the country back under lockdown but is wary of hurting the economy – a dilemma that many countries, including the UK, may face in the coming months.

“This isn’t really Somerset,” Jock Mendoza-Wilson says as he looks through an estate agents window on the High Street of the small town of Bruton, a few miles away from the site of Glastonbury festival in Somerset. “This is a microcosm of the poshest parts of London transported to one of the most beautiful parts of the country.”

The town, which dates to at least the Domesday Book of 1086, is back in focus this week as George Osborne, the former chancellor and editor-in-chief of the Evening Standard, has become the latest celebrity to move in, buying a five-bedroom Grade II-listed Georgian pile for £1.6m.

“Even before ‘gorgeous George’ decided to pop down, rich people from London have built a microclimate down here, and caused a real spike in prices,” says Mendoza-Wilson as he reels off the names of the other well-known figures who have also made the move west.

Sir Cameron Mackintosh, the musical theatre producer behind Cats, Les Misérables and The Phantom of the Opera, lives in a Grade I-listed former Augustinian prioryfrom the 13th century on the outskirts. The fashion designers Stella McCartney, Alice Temperley and Phoebe Philo live in the town or nearby, as does the war photographer Don McCullin, and the filmmaker Sam Taylor-Johnson with her actor husband, Aaron.

The actor Rhys Ifans lives in the centre of the town near Caroline Corr, of the Corrs, and Dominic Greensmith of the rock band Reef.

The influx has led the town, which boasts two private secondary schools and a state boarding secondary school, to be labelled the “next Chipping Norton” and British Vogue called it “the new Notting Hill”.

Iwan Wirth and Manuela Hauser, the founders of global art gallery network Hauser & Wirth who are regularly described as “the most powerful couple in the art world”, moved to Bruton in 2007, selling their former home in Holland Park, west London, to the Beckhams for £30m.

The couple now own a farm, vineyard and hotel in Bruton, and in 2014 they opened a branch of the Hauser & Wirth gallery in converted barns overlooking the town. The gallery’s restaurant was so busy for lunch this week that those turned away from its patio tables were asked to wait 45 minutes for £18 steak salads and £15 miso roast carrots to eat takeaway in the car park. Many obliged.

Mendoza-Wilson, the director of investor relations for System Capital Management, a huge conglomerate owned by Ukraine’s richest man, Rinat Akhmetov, says famous and creative people have attracted each other to the town and created a “real buzz and energy about the place” that has pulled in the wealthy and driven up his house price “massively”.

Mendoza-Wilson’s boss has not bought into Bruton yet, but he could afford to buy the whole town. Akhmetov, whose fortune is estimated at £5.2bn, recently bought a €200m (£180m) villa in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat on the Côte d’Azur to add to his portfolio, which includes a £137m flat in London’s One Hyde Park and the Ukrainian football club FC Shakhtar Donetsk.

Another billionaire, however, has bought into Bruton. In 2013 the South African internet mogul Koos Bekker and his wife, Karen Roos, a former editor of Elle Decoration South Africa, bought the Grade II*-listed Hadspen House, the seat of the Hobhouse family since the late 18th century.

The £12m house, which was said to have also been eyed by Johnny Depp, has been transformed into a £475-a-night country hotel and spa. Those with a smaller budget can pay £20 for a ticket to tour the gardens, which are being returned to their Edwardian glory by a team of 18 full-time gardeners. (If you like apples, it might be worth it as there are 267 varieties of apple tree.) There are also three restaurants, taking the number catering for a town with a population of less than 3,000 to six.

The latest restaurant to open on the High Street is Osip, run by Merlin Labron-Johnson, who at 24 became the youngest chef to win a Michelin star at his former London restaurant Portland in 2015.

Labron-Johnson, who has just arrived back in Bruton from his girlfriend’s house in London as he prepares to reopen Osip, says he was on the lookout for a new project outside London but had not considered Bruton until his financial adviser suggested it.

He moved last year and Osip, which he describes as “a tiny farm-to-table restaurant” with no menu, opened in November. Food is grown on the restaurant’s allotment, bought from local farmers or foraged from neighbours’ gardens in return for free meals. (The strawberries are from Mendoza-Wilson’s vegetable patch). Dinner costs £65 per person.

“I came to visit, and I fell in love,” Labron-Johnson says. “This is home now. I was slightly nervous that the locals would say: ‘Oh God, not another person from London doing a fancy restaurant’, but people have been really welcoming.”

While those who have also relocated from London have been welcoming, families who have lived in Bruton for generations complain that the “influx of those people from London” has pushed out cheaper restaurants and shops to make space to cater for the wealthy.

The rise in house prices, estimated by the high-street estate agent Hunter French to have increased by a third in five years, has also angered local people who cannot afford housing.

“Bruton is not for locals any more,” says Deborah Eaton, who is taking her grandson Jack and dog Chaos for a walk along the River Brue. “It’s all fancy restaurants we can’t afford and every other house is on Airbnb for silly money.

“It has completely changed – you used to walk from one end of the town to the other and it was nothing but shops. Now the Londoners are buying up all the shops and turning them into houses. My son can’t get anywhere to live. He’s in a tiny rental. The prices have got ridiculous.”

COMMONS

More news on: Parliament, government and politics, Parliament, House of Commons news, Commons news, Committee news