Community Services

The Council is committed to meeting the needs of local people and focusing on providing a better service for our customers. We provide front-line services to the people of the District, ranging from refuse collection to planning applications, environmental health to benefits. The Customer Contact team is the first port of call for inquiries and can deal with a range of issues or refer customers to the Council's technical experts for more details.

Customer Contact

We provide a front-line information service for all of our customers and, where possible, try to resolve any queries you have. If the enquiry is more technical we will refer you to the appropriate Council officer or specialist. We guarantee that we will always keep you fully informed and explain the reasons for the actions we take.

We deal with…

• Housing Association properties - allocating available properties
• Shared Ownership and Low Cost Market Housing schemes
• Free advice and assistance on all aspects of housing to anyone
• Medical Panel for housing applicants
• Domestic violence issues

Revenue and Benefits

We deal with…

• Council Tax - billing, collection, enforcement, discounts, exemptions, reductions for disabled people, updating the Valuation List.
• Non Domestic Rates - billing, collection, enforcement, mandatory and discretionary reliefs, updating the Rating List.
• Council Tax and Housing Benefit - assessing benefit claims, sending out notifications, payment of rent allowance, awarding Council Tax Benefit, Discretionary Housing Payment Awards, dealing with appeals.  
• Fraud - prevention and detection including the Fraud Hotline.

Operations

We deal with…

• Refuse collections
• Recycling collections - kerbside recycling scheme and bank schemes
• Trade refuse collections
• Special collections - bulky household waste
• Garden waste collections - via special sacks
• Vehicle maintenance - for the Council's fleet of vehicles
• Street sweeping
• Abandoned cars - removal from highway land

Leisure

We have three leisure centres serving the district in Shaftesbury, Sturminster Newton and Blandford. They offer a range of services to suit everyone.

Environmental Health and Licensing

We deal with…

• Food, health and safety and water supplies, including inspection of premises, registration and licensing of premises, training, food poisoning incidents, safety/food complaints, sampling private water supplies and food, licensing of animal establishments (riding, boarding, etc).
• Environmental protection and private sector housing, including complaints (noise, odour, dust, etc.), drainage problems and private sector housing issues (including housing/disabled facilities grants), Air Quality Strategy, contaminated land and radon gas monitoring.
• Licensing, including hackney carriages, private hire vehicles, public entertainment and theatres, alterations to rights of way, charitable collections and lottery certificates, street naming for new developments, street closure, tree preservation orders.
• Dog warden and pest control service, including stray dogs, dog fouling complaints, treatment of rats, mice, fleas and wasps.