Businesses with premises licences are being warned about a new scam. Fraudsters posing as council officials are contacting licence holders, claiming their licence is expiring or that fees are due. They may ask for payment to a personal account.

Important: Premises licences do not expire, and any fees will always be handled by the council through the usual process. Payments are never requested over the phone.

If in doubt, contact the council directly to verify any claims.

For more information on scams, visit the Action Fraud website.

Apply for housing benefit

Help towards your rent

You can apply for housing benefit if you need financial help to pay your rent and:

are of state pension age (find out more about changes that affect couples where one has reached state pension age and the other has not)
live in supported accommodation - find out more
live in temporary homeless accommodation arranged by the council

If not, and you need help towards your rent, you will need to:

Apply for universal credit

Please note: Our benefits system is not available between 2am & 2.15am (Monday - Thursdays) and 2am & 4am (early Saturday mornings) to allow for maintenance to take place. Please do not use our benefits system between these times, as you may lose your data. Thank you.