Council urges households to respond to reminder
Telford & Wrekin Council will be issuing reminder forms this week after ‘Household Enquiry Forms’ (HEF) were sent to each address in the borough in July.
The form is sent out to check who lives at every address and ensures not only that people are able to vote in the next election but it can also affect things like credit ratings for mobile phones and mortgage or tenancy applications.
To date, 45,000 households have responded, leaving 41 per cent outstanding.
By law, residents must register on the electoral roll and the council must also ensure the register is up to date.
Richard Partington, managing director of Telford & Wrekin Council, is calling on Telford’s 41 per cent of households yet to respond, to help the council save costs by responding as soon as possible to the initial correspondence.
The process is very simple and only takes a few minutes. If your details haven’t changed you can reply:
- Online here
- Text ‘NOCHANGE’ followed by your security codes to 80212
- Freephone 0800 197 9871 and follow the simple prompts
If there have been changes in your household, update them online or on the annual canvas form with details of people in your household who are eligible to vote. This can be returned in the freepost envelope provided.
If you are not currently registered, your name won’t be on the form - the easiest way to register is online at www.gov.uk/register-to-vote
As the electoral registration officer, Richard Partington said: “Firstly, I would like to say a big thank you to everyone who has already responded and returned their forms - it really does only take a few minutes.
“So far, 59 per cent have responded and this year with more and more returns online - eight per cent up on last year.
“Returning the form is very important for a person’s right to vote and to enable them to have their say at elections including the upcoming local election in May 2019. It can also affect credit ratings for things like applications for loans, mobile phone contracts or tenancies and mortgages if they don’t have their name on the register.
“The more reminders we have to send out, the more it costs the council when we would rather spend that money on front line services.”
Visit www.householdresponse.com/telfordwrekin to update your details or to register to vote www.gov.uk/register-to-vote
