Tens of thousands of Mansfield and Ashfield households potentially eligible for council tax rebate

Mr Sunak has unveiled a range of financial support to add to the £150 council tax rebate for almost every house between bands A-D.

This included a universal £400 grant to help pay for rising energy bills in October, a one-off £650 payment for those on means-tested benefits, a £300 grant for pensioners receiving winter fuel payments and £150 to those receiving certain disability allowances.

Valuation Office Agency figures show there were 48,290 properties classified between bands A-D in Mansfield as of March 31, 95 per cent of the 50,660 households in the area, alongside 54,720 properties in Ashfield, 96 per cent of the 56,870 total households.

Across England and Wales, 21.4 million of the 26.6m total properties are in bands A-D.

All occupiers in these properties are eligible for the rebate, except for where the owner is liable for council tax, such as a house of multiple occupancy, or residential care home.

Disastrous winter

Charity National Energy Action praised the help ahead of an ‘utterly disastrous’ winter for many who will be pushed into fuel poverty, but said this does not apply to the council tax rebate.

NEA said the current classification misses 600,000 households on low incomes, that vulnerable people not paying by direct debit are finding it difficult to access the rebate and it holds ‘serious concerns’ about the implementation of the rebate.

The range of extra measures Mr Sunak announced will help 8m of the lowest-income households, 8m pensioner households and a further 6m currently receiving non-means-tested disability benefits, the Chancellor claimed.

Announcing the £15 billion support package, part-funded by a windfall tax on oil and gas firms, expected to raise £5bn, Mr Sunak said: “This Government will not sit idly by while there is a risk some in our country might be set so far back they might never recover.”

Adam Scorer, NEA chief executive, said the Government's extra response ‘averts the darkest of outcomes and offers some hope to the millions of fuel poor households across the UK’, but also called on more long-term action.