North Yorkshire County Council to receive share of £1.6b government funding to help with coronavirus costs

North Yorkshire County Council has welcomed the news that it will get a share of an additional £ 1.6 billion in Government funding to help with rapidly escalating costs of the Covid-19 crisis.
County Hall, Northallerton.County Hall, Northallerton.
County Hall, Northallerton.

The county council, along with other local authorities across the county, will learn of its individual allocation later this week.

The extra funding was announced on Saturday by Robert Jenrick MP, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government.

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Cllr Carl Les, North Yorkshire County Council’s Leader, said he thanked Mr Jenrick for listening to the concerns of local authorities.

Cllr Les said: “He has taken on board that we urgently need additional funding for the crucial role we are playing in pulling communities together and building trust among people to fight the pandemic and for that we are thankful.”

The County Council was asked to submit an estimate of costs as a result of Covid-19.

This return showed that the council’s finances would be £65m worse than had been anticipated before the pandemic.

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Whilst £15m had been provided by the government as an additional grant, that still left a shortfall of £50m.

North Yorkshire has set up emergency school hubs for the children of critical workers, supported the NHS and care providers to cope with their increased costs, sourced additional PPE, coordinated an army of volunteers and created a new way of working for frontline social care teams so far in the pandemic.

Cllr Les added: “We don’t yet know the size of this additional allocation for the County Council but this extra funding will undoubtedly help to bridge the gap.

“Nevertheless we still face massive financial challenges and we estimated that the original allocation of £15m of grant for Covid-19 needed to be quadrupled to deal with the estimated costs.

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“The whole of North Yorkshire is pulling together to meet this unprecedented challenge and we are doing everything we can to keep people well and safe and to support the NHS.

“But we were already operating with reduced spending power so there is no doubt that we like many other councils, will need supportive and long-term partnership with Government for the crucial role we play and to see this crisis through.”

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