The Isle of Wight Council has confirmed that families won’t be receiving food vouchers this half term as a result of the initiative being scrapped.
During the recent pandemic, parents across the Island have been receiving free vouchers to help with feeding around 5,000 of the most vulnerable kids in society.
However, with the school holidays just around the corner, it has been confirmed that families will have to go without this May half term as the scheme, which was only ever intended to be short term, has come to an end.
A spokesperson for the Isle of Wight Council has this week said:
“When the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) launched the Covid Winter Grant in December 2020, which was used to fund school holiday food vouchers, it was only ever intended to be a short-term scheme to help families through the toughest times of the pandemic.
“Whilst we have seen funding continue to help vulnerable families across the UK, the latest guidance from DWP has seen a change in how that funding must be spent, and that has left most Local Authorities unable to fund the school holiday food vouchers.”
Although nothing will be in place for next week’s break, the Council says new schemes are in the pipeline.
Local families considered to be a vulnerable household will, in the future, be given a one-off voucher. Those receiving Local Council Tax Support and Pension Credit Guarenteed Credit will receive a £125 food voucher, whilst those receiving Local Council Tax Support and benefits-related free school meals will get a £50 food voucher.
A £25 food voucher will also be available to those receiving Local Council Tax Support but where there are no children or pensioners living at the property.
Islanders are being directed to a community food pantry in East Cowes which enables families to pay a membership of £5 and receive £15 worth of food. Similar schemes launch in Ventnor on 31st May and Ryde on 9th June.
Typical! Just at a time when people need extra help more than ever.
Just means less luxuries ie nails phone sky booze or drugs! Live like the rest of us and make money for your OWN kids
For your information, Miss Righteous I do not have any kids who would be eligible for this help. -My comment was a general one which, I’m sure, is how a lot of people feel right now.
Yawn.do be quite
Just making a true comment.move on
What a horrid way to assume the families with young children who are considered the most vulnerable are on drugs, booze or wasting money on fake nails.. do you enjoy your silver spoon? not a nice attitude at all and you don’t know what you’re talking about quite honestly as i know many struggling families who are feeding their kids over themselves!
jen is spot on though – every single one of them has a mobile phone, sky tv, internet, xbox and most are out at the weekends getting drunk – open your eyes and look around town – get out of your ivory towers and see for yourself.
Haha.oh please.wake up! Its what many fo.are you blind.iv no spoon .im disabled and struggle .but if i had kids id make better choices
I’m getting quite upset about these comments about people who are struggling and some genuinely are. Wish people would stop wasting they’re energy trolling like this. Would that be nice if they were struggling???
Lots of haters on here,Dee.
Almost certainly paid trolls.
Thankyou, Rishi, Boris, Seely et al. Time you were all gone.
Just a thought, if the money currently being wasted on the non floating bridge was used to pay for food help it would be of great use to islanders in poverty, even better would have been if the money squandered on council pet projects were used perhaps people on the waiting lists could be housed, especially if housing were provided solely for islanders and rented with no possibility of “right to buy”.
What people with children always tell you is how little they get. What they DON’T tell you is they get free rent, free council tax, free prescriptions, free dental care, twenty pounds per child in child allowance, around eight thousand extra a year per child if working just twenty hours a week paid by working and child tax credits.
Their income is often more than many childless working people, and yet they pay little on the above mentioned. And home mostly
They just have learnt how to milk it.
Contraception is FREE, USE IT if you are too poor to fund you own future childs life, others are sick of paying for your choice.
Also, these same whinging people rarely have one child that they can’t afford, but several. Hardly showing that they are good parents, for if one child is suffering due to poverty then so will the next, so either dim or they are lying about poverty to gain more
They also don’t have the expense of maintenance of house as and many don’t even look after their garden.
They have all the free time to enjoy life, many pretend to be single parents, yet never spent a single night alone, with the undeclared partner often dealing in drugs or growing such in a tent in the loft, thus earning thousands a year in undeclared income.