A CONSTRUCTION site at Hereford County Hospital has been shut after nine workers tested positive for coronavirus.

Contractors MTX working on the hospital's new wards say they have done "nothing wrong" and have followed all the guidelines.

The site will now stayed closed for up to 14 days and undergo a deep clean.

MTX managing director David Hartley said it's "upsetting and distressing" that there has been confirmed cases on the site. He said the latest number of cases linked to the site as he understands is nine.

He said the first case was found last Wednesday (October 14), and as of this morning (Wednesday) work has come to a halt.

He added: "I can tell you and can confirm that we have followed guidance central government has presented to us and how to safely operate our site.

"In conjunction with that we have worked with the environmental agency. Nobody has identified that we've done anything wrong, i have to stress that we've done nothing wrong.

"This is a terrible situation that we're in, hence why we've taken to approprite actions to suspend activity on the site to ensure that we've got a reset button and we can look at how we improve our operations.

"We've not done anything that's inappropriate. There was daily cleaning of toilets and canteens."

Mr Hartley added the construction site where the new three-storey wards are being built is separate to the county hospital itself so there was no risk of "cross-contamination".