Dunster Benefice Newsletter 27th May 2022
Timberscombe School Friday News 27.05.22
Update by WS and T Council on the £150 rebates from the government:
We have now made 36,174 (out of 55,390 ) energy rebate payments. These will appear as ‘ENERGYREB’ on bank statements.
All households where they pay their Council Tax by DD (provided we are permitted to automatically pay), will have received their £150.00 rebate payment already or will do by 9th June (if their first Council Tax DD payment is made on 15, 20 or 23 May).
Those that will not have received a payment by 9th June will be required to submit a claim form for the rebate. This will include households that don’t pay their Council Tax by DD as well as those who do, but their bank account name does not match the name on the council tax bill or because they will not have made a DD payment in April or May.
The claim form will be online but will also be able to be completed on the customer’s behalf where they telephone us. It will ask for the customers bank details and we will make payment into their bank account. We cannot make payment by cash or cheque.
We will start writing to these households in early June; a little later than we had originally planned, but we have needed to undertake some additional technical security changes before our claim form can go live. We are working toward the online claim form being available on our website on 8 June. Once the online form is live it won’t be necessary for customers to wait for the letter to arrive before a claim is made.
Changes to waste collection due to Jubilee Celebrations
The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations are fast approaching and with them an extra bank holiday which means changes to Somerset Waste Partnership’s usual recycling and rubbish collection schedule.
This always happens over bank holidays, but the Jubilee is a little more complicated because of the extra bank holiday on Thursday 2 June and there will be collections on two consecutive Saturdays.
- No collections on Thursday 2 June. These collections will happen on Saturday 4 June.
- No collections on Friday 3 June. These collections will happen on Monday 6 June.
- All collections for the week beginning 6 June will take place one day later, including Friday 10 June collections happening on Saturday 11 June.
Please make sure you know your revised collection day and put your recycling and/or rubbish out on the right day before 7am.
This is the perfect excuse to use the My Collection Day feature on the SWP homepage somersetwaste.gov.uk
You can use it to download your collection days into the calendar on your laptop or mobile device – it works for Apple and Android devices and sets up automatic reminders, so you need never miss a collection again.
Or you can use the same feature to just check your days online or download a printable copy of your collection day calendar.
You can also check the 12-month calendar that was sent to all homes as part of the roll-out of the new Recycle More service. In some parts of the county, the calendar will cover the Jubilee changes.
Anyone organising a street party on Saturday 4 June, should check if they are due a recycling and/or rubbish collection on that day and ensure crews can still get access to collect their waste – remember, collections usually due on Thursday 2 June will happen on Saturday 4 June.
Are you eligible for the Boiler Upgrade Scheme?
From 23 May 2022 a new grant scheme for homeowners upgrading from gas boilers to either an Air Source Heat Pump (ASHP) or a biomass boiler may be eligible for a grant of £5,000, or £6,000 if upgrading to a Ground Source Heat Pump (GSHP).
The government is providing grants to encourage property owners to install low carbon heating systems such as heat pumps, through the Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS). These grants will help property owners overcome the upfront cost of low carbon heating technologies.
The scheme is open to domestic and small non-domestic properties in England and Wales. It is running from 2022 to 2025.
Please click here to find out more.
New COVID-19 Dashboard
As a result of recent changes to policy, the number of detected cases alone no longer provides an accurate or consistent indication of the prevalence of COVID-19 in our community.
As a result of this, detailed cases data such as the map and district level figures have been removed from the SCC and NHS in Somerset Dashboard. Cases are still shown on the chart; however, it now includes additional information (ONS Prevalence*) that may give a better indication of the actual number of people with COVID. Testing data has also been added to provide further context.
The hospital admissions data also now includes mechanical ventilation bed patients who are positive as a better indicator of serious illness being treated. The OPEL level on this page provides a snapshot of how the health and care system overall is managing.
The vaccination page now provides more overall strategic vision of how the vaccination programme has been implemented and provides an indication of the effective level of immunity provided to our community by boosters and third doses.
The current version of the dashboard can be accessed at any time here.
Timberscombe 