PUB owners in Carlisle say they're determined to carry-on in the face of another national coronavirus lockdown.

On Monday evening the prime minister Boris Johnson said pubs were to close their doors again in a bid to stop the new variant of the virus spreading.

The situation is expected to last until at least mid-February with alcohol takeaways also now banned.

Linda Norman, landlady of the Rose & Crown, Low Hesket, who runs the pub with husband and licencee Keith, said: "The closures are not as frustrating as being in Tier Two, we were expected to open but we could hardly do any of our capacity, a lot of places decided to close after Christmas.

"By not opening it's made things a lot easier - we have got a grant, when we were in Tier Two we got nothing.

"We have gone through 19 years and seen a lot of change.

"This is unprecedented but everyone in our industry is in the same boat, we are all struggling."

David Scott of the Boardroom pub, Paternoster Row, said: "Of course we'll keep going because we are English.

"We have to keep hope up, that is all we have got at the moment."

Dianne Irving, who owns The Howard Arms, The Milbourne Arms and The Crown Inn, had already closed down the pubs on Christmas Eve in a bid to reopen in the spring. She said it was in line with what was expected.

She added: "To be honest it is no different from what was said a few weeks ago.

"We shut the pubs because we could not serve in Tier Two and so it's nothing new.

"Hopefully we are looking at March when we are expecting to get the pub open again."

Speaking in December she said: "The last thing you want to do is shut a pub, because once you shut it - it’s very difficult to get it open again.

“People have been incredibly supportive.

"The messages we’ve got back from people of support and understanding, for me, meant the world.”

She said her teams have worked tirelessly to keep the doors open but added that Tier Two is "impossible" to work in, with costs outweighing profit.