PERSISTENT house party pandemic flouters face in Greater Manchester escalating fines following an announcement by home secretary Priti Patel.

Anyone attending a house party of 15 or more people to will now be fined £800. These fines double for each repeat offence up to a maximum fine of £6,400 and will be introduced from next week.

Police say the majority of people in the city region are doing their best in relation to following the Covid regulations.

But a statement issued by Greater Manchester Police went on: "However, we are receiving an increase in the number of reports regarding house parties and Covid breaches in general.

"Last weekend we received the highest number of reports of breaches since the middle of August 2020 (excluding New Year's Eve).

Last week GMP issued 190 fixed penalty notices (FPNs), and out of these 87 were in relation to house parties.

That's 46 per cent of all FPNs given last week just for house parties.

Compared to the same period last month there has been a 16 per cent increase and the fact that this month we are in tighter regulations, makes this increase even more worrying.

There is also an increase in the number of people in attendance at each property, with an average of 15 or more people.

The statment said: "This is not acceptable. Those in attendance are risking not only their own lives but also those of others and are putting extra pressure on an already struggling NHS.

"We would rather the public follow the rules than have to resort to issuing FPNs, but if we do get called to a blatant breach, which includes house parties, we will look to issue fines to not only the homeowner, but to all those in attendance.

"The regulations for Covid were introduced almost a year ago and we know this has been an extremely difficult period for everyone, but you must think of others. If you are invited to a house party don't attend, you are dangerously putting yourself and your family at risk.

"If you intend to host a house party please know that we continue to work with our partners to take action against those premises that repeatedly break the rules. Our partners have issued closure orders and civil injunctions against individuals across Greater Manchester to stop this reckless activity.

"There is a new variant of Covid that spreads more rapidly and it's vital we all do everything we can to stop the spread."