Thousands more Isle of Wight households will benefit from supermarket vouchers this Winter, as the Isle of Wight Council expands its cost-of-living support scheme.
Previously limited to pensioner households in receipt of Local Council Tax Support (LCTS), the initiative now covers all Island households receiving LCTS.
Eligible households will automatically receive a £25 supermarket voucher in the post later this month, with no need to apply.
The scheme, funded through the Household Support Fund, aims to ease the pressure on low-income families during the colder months.
Ian Lloyd, the council’s strategic manager for partnerships and support services, says:
“We know many residents are feeling the strain of rising costs, particularly following the festive season.
“By widening eligibility, we can ensure more households get the help they need. This is about supporting our community and making sure help reaches those who need it most.”
The expansion means up to 10,000 households could benefit from the vouchers, which can be used at Sainsbury’s stores across the Island to purchase essential food and hygiene items.
Residents are encouraged to check their eligibility and explore other forms of support available through the Household Support Fund by visiting https://www.iow.gov.uk/keep-the-island-safe/cost-of-living/household-support-fund/food-and-crisis-support-services/.
Alright for some.
I wonder how many of these households spend their benefit
money on booze, cigarettes, vapes, scratchcards and tatts!,
oh and I forgot having their nails done.
Lol
Luv me bennies
luv me ‘andouts
simple
Will be spent on booze – perhaps instead the council cut the council tax. All these thieving councillors seem to do is come up with more ways of stealing more money from people instead of making cuts and putting money back into taxpayers pockets
It has nothing whatsoever to do with councils, councillors, or council tax. It come from central government taxation via the monies into the DWP fund. it is VOUCHERS for food or toiletries RATHER THAN extra money. It means people like me can eat a tiny bit better and hopefully I won’t lose any more weight than the 1 stone I already have (now less than 7.5 stone, BMI less than 16) in the few short months I’ve had to claim the paltry £800 a month to cover rent, council tax, food and bills.
Furthermore, for all the other nasty, spiteful, entitled twats who seem to have an opinion on a system they clearly know nothing about benefits entitlement culminating in extra payments like these are HEAVILY means tested, and the payments issued rarely, if ever, touch the sides of actual cost of living.
If I wasn’t already ill, I’d be very very tempted to spend it on booze; living like this with constant stress and hassle would make temporary oblivion seem like a good choice. Self medication for pain. Like aspirin, paracetamol, ibuprofen, codeine…things almost all people wouldn’t be without.
10,000 x £25 = £250,000
Amazing how charitable you can be with other peoples money,
I wonder how much the council tax will rise in 2026
It would be nice if the Island Echo had mentioned that this is funded by central Government, so that the whingers could target their unpleasant comments correctly, although how anyone could think that anyone on benefits is living the life of Riley and doesn’t need an extra boost, I don’t know. Anyone would think they were being fed this information….
The same as always, by the UK average of roughly 5%. What’s that got to do with government money for food schemes?
These vouchers should be awarded to working families only. Those getting more in free handouts than a workman is earning, do not need vouchers. I’m pissed off with hearing scrounging whelks bragging about how they can’t afford to come off benefits because it would ruin their lavish life stile. They should be means tested, they are taking the piss out of the system, no one in government seems to have the balls to make this so.
What you must read to get your mis-information is worrying.
Of the 24million people on benefits, 13.2m are pensioners, 10m were working age, and 800,000 were children with some form of disability. Of those 10m working age people, just 17% were unemployed. That means that 83% were IN WORK.
Are you now suggesting that the 17% should be discriminated against because of the lack of employment currently? That starvation should be a ‘punishment’? That their hunger is less entitled than other’s?
Do you not wonder HOW the DWP collates those figures? Means testing, maybe?
There is no ‘lavish lifestyle’; instead there is a benefits CAP which does not exceed £25,323 a year, PER FAMILY, not per person…roughly in line with minimum wage, hence all the 87% of ‘working’ families eligible for receiving benefits, and mainly due to conservatism watering down employment rights and allowing companies to introduce a gig economy so they could row back on hard-won workers rights of NI contributions, paid holidays, sick pay, maternity pay, redundancy etc etc.
I’m telling you this because ignorance is not a crime; you can’t know what you don’t know. And because your ire needs to be directed elsewhere…not towards the poor *uckers caught in a system which they didn’t create, and which profits the already rich from the poor and the imposed ‘rules’.
If it’s not ignorance that drives these types of comments, it smacks of you being a privileged, entitled, nasty spiteful human who believes any agenda of a ‘don’t look at us, look at THEM’ government would drip-feed into certain newspapers.