Today, Monday sees the first mass vaccination centre in our region open its doors.

The Robertson House Conference Centre, in Gunnels Wood Road in Stevenage, is the first of its kind in Hertfordshire, and the first of many vaccination centres set to open across the county and UK as a whole.

The news follows the start of the roll-out of the Oxford/Astrazeneca and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines after they were approved by the regulator.

It is expected that thousands of people will be able to be vaccinated at the centre on a daily basis.

All vaccination appointments are pre-booked and will initially focus on people that are 80 years of age and over, as well as frontline health and social care workers, who live within a 45-minute drive of Stevenage – with the NHS contacting those who are eligible.

The vaccination centre is intended to run seven days a week from 8am to 8pm.

It is expected that the number of appointments is to rise significantly over the coming weeks – with the area likely to become extremely busy with additional traffic throughout the day.

To help manage this there will be new signage on the local highways to guide those attending for a vaccination to the correct entrance and exit, and to warn others that only those with a booked appointment will be allowed access.

Robertson House is operated by the Hertfordshire Community Trust, in partnership with the NHS and various local authorities across the county.