VULNERABLE North Yorkshire residents who need support during Covid-19 restrictions are being reassured that help will be available through to next autumn if required.

It has been confirmed that the support put in place by North Yorkshire County Council at the start of the first lockdown last March will continue for months ahead even once lockdown is lifted.

Since March, the council has invested in 23 community support organisations (CSOs) across North Yorkshire.

It has also worked alongside district councils to coordinate volunteer and community help for people who need assistance and do not have friends, family or neighbours to call upon.

These community support hubs are a single point of contact, pulling together other organisations to provide a safety net for people.

More than 1,500 volunteers have helped thousands of people each week with shopping, hot meals and prescriptions, as well as checking on people’s wellbeing.

That work continues apace, especially as the clinically vulnerable - 26,000 people in North Yorkshire - have once more been asked to shield.

The county council has now agreed to extend funding for the community support organisations for a further six months after the current agreements end in March.

This will ensure people can access support through current restrictions and beyond.

Gary Fielding, the County Council’s corporate director for strategic resources said: “During this most difficult phase of the pandemic we want to reassure people that the safety net of support we have put in place will carry on in the months ahead.

“We are very grateful for the work of the community support organisations and all our volunteers in past months and their efforts are redoubled presently as people are required to stay at home and refrain from social mixing and the clinically vulnerable have to shield once again.

“We are proud of the culture of kindness and neighbourliness and volunteering that is at the heart of North Yorkshire’s identity, a culture which has seen us through the darkest months and which I know will continue in the time ahead.

"We are all looking out for each other and the extension of these contracts will ensure nobody slips through the net.”