Vale offers rates assistance for hard-pressed parishioners

How the Guernsey Press headlined the offer

He made this clear as the Douzaine was working towards finalising the rates for 2020 and was reassessing proposed parish expenditure line by line to see what savings could be made to reduce bills where possible.

Proposed expenditure has already been published here but Mr Leale, pictured, said that proposals would be put to Douzeniers to reduce this when they meet online early next month.

The Rector and Churchwardens have also published a revised schedule of proposed expenditure – which can be seen here – which drops the original estimate of 2020 expenditure by around 25%.

Balancing act
Mr Leale said that reducing parish expenditure was something of a balancing act because any cuts made would likely have to be added to the following year's Remède. "We will, however, see what we can do as Douzeniers recognise that this is an immediate problem for many and that even short-term help would be appreciated."

The key thing was for parishioners experiencing hardship over the rates to contact the office as soon as they could. "There are a number of options for payment and we would look at everything on a cases-by-case basis," he said.

Separately, an approach was made by a parish facility experiencing difficulty obtaining anti-bacterial hand gel and tissues for a number of individuals for whom it was responsible and these were sourced and delivered without contact.

"These are difficult times and we will help where we can," said Mr Leale.

• Contact can be made by post to the Vale Douzaine Room, Maraitaine Road, Vale GY3 5QE, or by email to [email protected].