The borough of Richmond upon Thames now has the highest rate of coronavirus cases in all of London's boroughs.

New data released by the Government has shown a further increase in cases this week, seeing it pass Redbridge to now be the worst affected borough in London at present.

The figures, for the seven days to October 5, are based on tests carried out in laboratories (pillar one of the Government's testing programme) and in the wider community (pillar two).

The rate is expressed as the number of new cases per 100,000 people.

Data for the most recent three days (October 6-8) has been excluded as it is incomplete and likely to be revised.

Richmond now has a rate of 112.1 new cases per 100,000 people, compared to Redbridge's rate of 108.8 cases per 100,000.

222 new cases were reported in Richmond, up from 89 new cases in the previous week.

Neighbouring Kingston upon Thames also recorded a significant rise - with a rate of 72.7 new cases per 100,000 and 129 new cases, up from 69 in the previous week.

It comes after both Richmond Council leader Gareth Roberts and Richmond Park MP Sarah Olney urged residents to follow social distancing measures.

Cllr Roberts said on Monday “it is absolutely vital we all follow the rules” to avoid spreading the virus and going into a local lockdown.

He said: “Of course we want to ensure that we don’t go into local lockdown. But what we have to be aware of is that the mood music coming out of London is that if one area of London goes into local lockdown, we all go into local lockdown. We need to avoid that if at all possible.”

He added: “If you’re one of those people who think that these rules don’t apply to you, that you can go about your business as you have always done, now you may not care about your own health, you may not care about your own job, but you are putting other people’s health at risk, you are putting other people’s jobs at risk. So please pack it in!

“It is absolutely vital that we all follow these rules because the increase of cases that we have seen over the last seven days is something that should be concerning all of us.”