Council leaders have not been notified of any local cases of the highly-contagious South African coronavirus variant after it was detected in neighbouring county Surrey.

Two cases of the strain have been discovered in Woking and on Monday (February 1) volunteers scrambled to deliver door-to-door testing to about 9,500 people within the GU21 postcode.

Once completed and collected by the volunteers, the tests are sent to a laboratory to be examined for the South African strain, according to PA.

The Woking cases were two of eleven identified over the last five or six days in people who have no links to travel - suggesting it may be spreading in communities.

Peter Rice opens his Covid-19 swap kit on his doorstep in in Maidstone, Kent, during a testing blitz of 80,000 people in England which is aiming to find every single case of the South Africa coronavirus variant in a bid to stop the spread of the more

Peter Rice opens his Covid-19 swap kit on his doorstep in in Maidstone, Kent, during a testing blitz of 80,000 people in England which is aiming to find "every single case" of the South Africa coronavirus variant in a bid to stop the spread of the more

The South African variant is more transmissible than the original strain of covid-19, according to Sky News, but is thought to be as transmissible as the variant that was first identified in Kent.

There is no evidence yet that it causes more severe disease.

READ MORE: Door-to-door testing blitz to find every South African variant in parts of UK

At a meeting of Bracknell Forest Council’s outbreak engagement board, Councillor Marc Brunel-Walker asked whether the variant was on the authority’s ‘radar’ given the proximity of the ‘surge testing’ in Surrey.

He said: “With all the news about Woking and the GU21 postcode and the mass testing for the South African variant, is that something that is on our radar?

“Have we seen any instances or any issues? Do we think it’s spread further out, or will we learn more once community testing is done?”

Cllr Brunel-Walker asked about the detection of the South African variant at a meeting of the board just before Christmas after pointing out that Bracknell Forest has ‘a fair number of South Africans’.

READ MORE: The South African variant -- what do we know so far?

But Timothy Wheadon, Bracknell Forest Council’s Chief Executive, claimed the authority had not been notified of any cases of the strain in the borough.

He said: “Regarding the South African variant, we’ve not been notified of any cases.

A person passes social distancing signs as they make their way along the High street in Slough, Berkshire, in the final week of a four week national lockdown to curb the spread of coronavirus (PA)

A person passes social distancing signs as they make their way along the High street in Slough, Berkshire, in the final week of a four week national lockdown to curb the spread of coronavirus (PA)

“The last I heard, there were 11 across the country that weren’t related to travel.

“And in each of the postcodes affected, there’s surge test and tracing going on with a tremendous amount of resource being put out.

“I’m sure if there was a case detected in Bracknell Forest then we would know about it and we would be working on it.”

READ MORE: 80,000 people in England to be tested for South African variant

The board met on Tuesday, February 2.