Temperatures are set to hover around freezing across the whole country throughout next week
Cold weather payments have been triggered in dozens of postcodes across Northern England and more may be announced in the coming days as freezing weather persists.
As of 3 January, the Department of Work and Pensions has been distributing cold weather payments of £25 per week to those on low incomes in areas of Cumbria, Northumberland and parts of England on the Scottish border.
Payments are activated when average temperatures in a local area are below zero degrees Celsius for seven consecutive days or forecast to be below freezing for seven days in a row. The scheme runs between November and March every year.
To qualify, you must live in England, Wales or Northern Ireland, and already be receiving certain benefits, including:
- Pension Credit
- Income Support
- Income-based Job Seekers’ Allowance
- Income-related Employment and Support Allowance
- Universal Credit – although there are certain exceptions
- Support for Mortgage Interest
Scotland has a separate winter heating payment scheme instead of cold weather payments.
The £25 cold weather payments are made each week as long as temperatures remain freezing.
Cold weather payments are separate from the winter fuel payments, which are provided to pensioners receiving certain benefits and are worth either £200 or £300.
The Met Office has issued yellow and amber warnings for snow and ice across much of the UK over the weekend. Yellow warning for snow and ice are in place across southern and eastern Scotland until Monday but no further warnings have been issued so far for the rest of the week.
Becky Mitchell, a meteorologist for the Met Office, told The i Paper: “We have very cold weather across the whole of the UK throughout most of the week. Daytime temperatures look likely to be in low single figures at best.
“Northern England and southern Scotland are where we’re expecting it to be coldest. We’re expecting quite large snowfall accumulation across Northern England over the next 24 hours and because of how cold it’s going to be a lot of that snow will stick around throughout next week or slowly turn to ice.
“Signs are at the moment that temperatures will gradually return to normal towards the end of next weekend but for pretty much the whole week there are clear signs it’s going to stay very cold across the whole of the country.”
The long-range forecast from 9 to 18 January warns of “widespread frost and an ongoing risk of ice”. Later in the month there are “hints that it may become milder”, the Met Office said.
The lowest recorded temperature of the cold snap so far was in Benson, Oxfordshire, where it was -8.1°C on Friday morning. In Shap, Cumbria, where cold weather payments have been triggered, it reached -7.5°C.
Eskdalemuir recorded the lowest temperature in Scotland, with -6.4°C.