Despite approximately three quarters of households having responded to the Household Enquiry Form sent in the post by South Cambridgeshire District Council, around 18,000 homes still haven’t.
The Household Enquiry Form lists everyone currently registered at an address and, for households that have not changed, the only requirement is to confirm that this is the case.
The easiest way to confirm that there have been no changes is to visit www.householdresponse.com/southcambs and complete the short online form. You’ll just need to use both parts of a security code printed on your Household Enquiry Form. It only takes a couple of minutes to complete the online form. You can also respond via text message. Details about how to respond by text are included on the Form.
If you don’t have internet access, you can call 0800 197 9871 or complete and return the paper form to the Council using the freepost envelope.
If changes do need to be made to the list of people living at an address, it’s straight forward to update this information online or by returning the completed Household Enquiry Form in the post. Doing so will make it easier for anyone wishing to register to vote in the future.
Councils are legally required to collect this information each year, so all homes that fail to respond by the end of August will automatically be sent a reminder to complete the Household Enquiry Form.
Mike Hill, Returning Officer at South Cambridgeshire District Council, said: “Some people don’t always realise that we’re legally required to make sure our records are up to date every year, so we have to send out the Household Enquiry Form and do everything we can to encourage people to respond.
“I’m grateful to everyone who has already responded, and I would urge people who haven’t yet to do so before the end of August, to save on paper and postage costs of us sending out thousands of reminders.
“As a Council we’re working to be green to our core, so we really want to minimise the environmental cost of lots of paper being sent out when it could easily be avoided. For residents who want to support us in saving money, it may be of interest that using the automated options of calling or visiting the website are the most cost-efficient way of responding, rather than posting the forms back to us. But the most important thing is to please respond in whichever way you can.”