Household Support Fund

Energy Support

Citizens Advice Lancashire West are partnering with Chorley Council to support residents who are struggling with electricity, gas, and water costs.

Who can apply?

You CANNOT apply if you or someone in your household received a household support fund payment in the last 6 months
You MUST be aged 16 or over and the named account holder of your energy accounts
You MUST be a resident of the borough of Chorley

For clients not yet eligible to apply, help can be provided in other ways by:

Contacting your energy supplier and see what support they can offer you. Unless you have large arrears or have failed to meet agreed payment plans, they should be able to offer you support.
If you rent from a social landlord, contacting them and see what support they can offer.
Contacting Citizens Adice Lancashire West for a referral to their Cost of Living Support Worker who can check your benefit entitlement and help you access other support.
For wider support visit our Health and Wellbeing page.

How do you apply?

Complete the online application.
You must provide: at least one month of recent bank statements showing income and expenditure
The best way to do this is to upload the documents through the online application form or if you are unable to do this, email through to hsf5@calw.org.uk
You can also provide your financial information directly at the Chorley Citizens Advice office on Market Street. Please put it in an envelope and mark it for the attention of the 'HSF Team' and it can be left at reception on a Monday, Wednesday or Friday between 10am and 2pm.
Once your application is received by us, we aim to process it as soon as possible provided you have supplied the required evidence, but due to the high number of applications it could take up to 28 days. During this time please do not submit further applications or try to contact us regarding your application
If the required documents have not been provided, we cannot proceed with your application. All applications will be closed 10 working days after they have been submitted if the documents are not provided.
Depending on the level of demand for the fund, this may not always be possible and the amount paid is at the discretion of the local council. During this time please do not submit further applications or try to contact us regarding your application.

Please note:

Submitting an application does not guarantee acceptance.
In line with current Government guidance you do not need to be on benefits to apply and this money does not need to be paid back.

If you are successful, Chorley Citizens Advice will send you a Charis code. Charis is the name of the company being used to obtain and manage the codes.
The code will be sent to you either by email or text message (applicants that are not online or don't have a mobile phone will receive a code in the post).
You can redeem your code for cash to use for your energy payment at any appropriate Pay Point store. Find your nearest Paypoint store
If there are any difficulties with redeeming the voucher, please call PayPoint on 0330 400 0002 whilst still at the PayPoint store. Do NOT call Chorley Council or Citizens Advice as we are unable to assist with problems redeeming voucher codes.
We will only re-issue codes where the code issuer (Charis) agrees that the code is faulty and not when redeemed incorrectly by the retailer, or where a claim is made that the codes have already been redeemed. Please be aware that the date, time, location and CCTV footage is recorded by the PayPoint till for all transactions.
You are responsible for the security of the devices you receive text messages and emails onto and replacement codes will not be issued when a device has been accessed by another person and the codes fraudulently redeemed.