RESIDENTS facing financial crisis have been alerted to a council’s scheme to help alleviate the pressure.

Anthony Sandys, Darlington Borough Council’s head of housing and revenues services, said while the authority issued about 8,500 summons for unpaid council tax a year, very few people applied for help under its council tax discretionary discount scheme.

A meeting of the authority’s resources scrutiny committee heard Councillor Alan Coultas question what flexibility the council had to extend council tax support to those in financial crisis.

Mr Sandys said under the council’s tax support scheme, working aged people on low incomes could receive up to 80 per cent help with their council tax. He said in addition, under the discretionary scheme, any resident could apply for up to 100 per cent help with the council tax. Mr Sandys said: “I would always say to people if you are in difficulty contact us, because we can sometimes do something about it. If people don’t contact us then it goes down the recovery route.”