COUNCILLORS in York and North Yorkshire have welcomed the Government's announcement that it is to give an extra £1.6 billion to councils for dealing with the coronavirus pandemic.

City of York Council estimated last month the pandemic would cost it £20 million and wrote to the Government about it. North Yorkshire County Council estimates its cost will be £65 million.

Like local authorities across the country, both are facing major financial problems because their income generating services are either closed or greatly reduced by the lockdown and they are incurring substantial extra costs related to coronavirus.

Yesterday, the Local Government Secretary Robert Jenrick announced he was doubling the coronavirus council funding he had already given to £3.2 billion.

The leader of City of York Council, Cllr Keith Aspden said: "Councils across the country including here in York are leading local efforts to support communities and businesses through the coronavirus crisis and keep day to day services running.

"This has led to significant unforeseen demands and costs caused by the pandemic – rightly to protect the vulnerable such as older, disabled and homeless people – and in order to continue to keep normal services running, such as bin collections.

"Today’s new funding is a welcome step in the right direction and it’s particularly encouraging to see the government has responded to my letter and is conscious of the strain local authorities are under to provide essential services.

"However our initial estimates suggest the costs of the Covid-19 crisis for York is likely to be in the region of £20 million. It is important that we know the additional costs of our response will not affect the council’s longer-term finances, particularly in providing services to children and in adult social care.

We will continue to work with the government to ensure more clarity over funding, so that we can focus all our efforts into the fight against coronavirus.”

The leader of North Yorkshire County Council, Cllr Carl Les, said Mr Jenrick "has taken on board that we urgently need additional funding for the crucial role we are playing in pulling communities together and building trust among people to fight the pandemic and for that we are thankful.”

“We don’t yet know the size of this additional allocation for the County Council but this extra funding will undoubtedly help to bridge the gap. Nevertheless we still face massive financial challenges and we estimated that the original allocation of £15m of grant for Covid-19 needed to be quadrupled to deal with the estimated costs.”

He called for the Government to enter a "supportive and long-term relationship" with local councils.