BEREAVED families across the borough have been unable to say a proper farewell to their loved ones after a change in coronavirus restrictions.

Funerals in Bolton have now been limited to just six people, with heartbroken families given just a few days to cut the number of mourners down to fit the new guidelines.

One heartbroken mourner, who asked not to be named, had just three days to tell 24 people that they couldn't attend her dad's funeral on Tuesday.

She said: "Every day for the last two weeks there's been something to do or something to sort and we finally got the funeral organised for the church to tell us on Saturday the maximum we could have was six.

"We had to ring up everybody to tell them they couldn't come.

"I'm not daft, I understand about covid but they wouldn't even let more than six people stand outside – it's a huge graveyard, they could stand 30m away if they needed to."

The grieving daughter had arranged for 30 people to attend her dad's funeral on Tuesday.

Changes to the rules left the family scrambling to decide who could attend as part of the six, adding to their heartache and anguish at an already difficult time.

She added: "There must be hundreds of families affected by this.

"I'm just glad that my dad only had me and my brother – we can just about fit the whole family in the new six.

"It's awful, we can't give him a proper send off or even have a cup of tea for him.!

The heartbroken daughter and her family aren't the only people who have been hit by the latest rule changes.

Funeral directors across the borough have had to break the difficult news to grieving families, who have found the new restrictions really tough.

Tony Crook, a partner at Season's Independent Funeral Service on Morris Green Road, said: "It's hard for the families, obviously the latest government guidance says funerals aren't affected but in Bolton where the rates are higher it's different.

"Once you explain that they're quite understanding, it's difficult but it's out of our hands.

"It's not nice to do, it's not been a good year – we can't give the service that we'd like to give them but we do what we can and push the boat out where we can.

"There's various things the council have offered such as the free live web cast so that's a bit of a bonus.

"We can only do what we can, it's not been a nice few months but hopefully things start to ease soon and we can get back to a bit of normality."