MORE and more people in Wellington are looking for support from the Citizen’s Advice organisation as they struggle to come to terms with the detrimental financial effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Members of Wellington Town Council’s finance committee agreed on Tuesday – held via Zoom video conferencing technology – to award the Citizen’s Advice Taunton group with a grant of £5,000.

Citizen’s Advice – which runs an outreach service in Wellington – had asked the council for a grant of £4,850 but councillors quickly agreed to increase it to £5,000.

Jon Shoesmith, of Citizen’s Advice Taunton, told councillors that ‘demand’ for its support services had ‘steadily increased’ in recent months.

“A lot of this is driven by employment circumstances and we are finding that a cohort of people who have never used us before are now having to use us,” he said.

“People have found themselves needing us because of a change in circumstances – people who are not used to finding themselves in crisis or sudden difficulty. It has been a big deal for some people because they are unaccustomed to that.”

Mr Shoesmith said people had either been laid off work or seen their hours reduced, while others were having issues with benefits or finding themselves with mounting debt problems.

“We’re finding that people have been using credit cards to keep themselves going,” he said.

For the full story see this week’s Wellington Weekly News.