The Bank House Hotel in King's Lynn offers to act as a Covid-19 vaccination station

Lynn's historic Bank House Hotel has offered to act as a Covid-19 vaccination station to speed up the process of distributing the vaccine as quickly as possible.

The hotel on King's Staithe Square, run by Michael Baldwin, is currently unable to operate under Tier 4 restrictions, but is covid secure, well located, and ready to help in the fight against coronavirus.

Michael Baldwin said: "This has been a truly awful year for everybody, but we must all be ready to do our bit, as we have here at Bank House throughout 2020.

"As we sit in Tier 4 and have to be closed, if our hotel can be put to use for our community then that can only be a good thing. We hope we can relieve some of the burden of our local surgeries and hospitals and enable more people to get vaccinated quicker, thus enabling everyone to get back to normal sooner as well as hopefully saving lives.

"I feel very strongly that we must do all that we can to help our community in a time of great need. We have always held this at the heart of everything we do at Bank House.”

He has signed the open letter on behalf of The Bank House in the hope it will be seen by healthcare, council and government decision makers, as well as encouraging other businesses to make a similar offer.

The letter, in full, states: "We at Bank House have now had to close for the third time this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. During the course of 2020 we have had to operate in a very different manner, from serving takeaway, introducing social distancing, offering free rooms to key workers, and now having to close our doors once more.

"Whilst we stand empty, we would like to offer our hotel as a Covid-19 Vaccination Station should the need arise for more locations. We are a town centre location with easy parking and pedestrian access and have also spent the last few months ensuring we are covid secure. We have staff who are trained first aiders, fridge space aplenty, many separate rooms and everything needed in order to speed up the vaccination process for the people in our community.

"I am sure we are not alone in having suitable spaces available and would hope that other businesses could offer up their space and that it would be accepted by the decision makers. The speed at which we can roll out vaccines is the speed at which we can return to normality and start our lives anew.

"We stand ready to do our bit."