RESIDENTS in Carlisle struggling with soaring energy costs can look to the city council for support.
Households across Great Britain are seeing significant increases in the cost of energy due to a complex mix of issues, which include the war in Ukraine.
In response, the Government has announced a package of support for households totalling £9.1 billion.
And local authorities are tasked with offering a non-repayable one-off £150 rebate to people in Band A-D properties, supporting them with their bills.
City council member for Harraby South and Parklands Jo Ellis-Williams asked for more detail on the support for residents at a meeting earlier this month.
She said: “I’ve had a number of residents ask me about council tax. I just wondered if you could tell us in the chamber when the £150 Government rebate will be allocated for houses in Band A to D.”
Cllr Gareth Ellis, portfolio holder for finance and governance said: “In terms of the £150, we have 44,000 properties in Carlisle which qualify for the £150 energy rebate, of which 29,700 pay by direct debit.
“That means we have their bank account details and that makes it much easier to make a payment back to them.
“For those people who don’t have direct debits, we’ll be contacting every single household and giving them the information on how to write to us.
“We’ll also have an online form, so we can direct people to the online form and make that process much easier.”
Cllr Ellis said that the executive hopes all eligible properties will receive their energy rebate by the end of this month.
The city council also has discretionary funding, a share of £144 million in Government funding for those who may not be eligible for the rebate but still need support with their bills.
Cllr Ellis said: “The issue is that the scheme is for properties A to D which its very easy to say low properties but a lot of people are in larger properties. Sometimes those properties are valued based on a value from 1992.”
Cllr Ellis said that vulnerable people who live in a larger property would be eligible for support through the discretionary scheme.
“We again hope to have that out by the end of May.”
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