In June, traders returning to a reopened market criticised lack of organisation for losing them business.

Waltham Forest Council announced that Walthamstow High Street market would reopen, with stalls spread out to make social distancing easier.

But some stallholders found themselves in a different part of the market, making it harder for their usual customers to find them, or even told there was no space.

Fights broke out as large numbers of lockdown-flouting revellers gathered on a green in Epping Forest.

Following the Government’s announcement that groups of six would be allowed to congregate from the following Monday onwards, crowds of revellers – who could not wait a few more days – flocked to Queen’s Green in High Beech that Saturday.

The green space, outside the Kings Oak Pub, resembled a music festival with widespread drinking and drug use reported on social media.

It emerged that deaths in epping Forest over one month at the height of the coronavirus outbreak were three times higher than normal, making the authority the most severely hit in Essex.

A total of 344 deaths were registered in Epping Forest in April, three times higher than the five-year average for the month of 116 registered deaths.

It meant that the number of excess deaths in Epping Forest last month was 197 per cent above levels usually expected.

Harlow’s MP says there could be “an epidemic of educational poverty” if we do not get children back in school sooner.

The Government had dropped plans to have all primary pupils back in school for at least four weeks before the summer holidays.

On BBC news, Mr Halfon, the Commons education committee chairman, questioned the decision and called for a national plan for education and a “proper timetable” for reopening.

And a man died after being shot outside a house where a party had been held.

The victim, a man in his 50s from Grays, was shot after a party in Water Lane, Roydon.

A group of men drove up to the address and fired several gunshots at a group of people outside the property before driving off in the

direction of Harlow, Essex Police said.

Two women, aged in their 20s, were also rushed to hospital with gunshot wounds.