Spend Local: Frustration over £100 vouchers ahead of deadline

Every adult in Northern Ireland was supposed to receive a £100 card

A small percentage of applicants are still waiting to receive their £100 Spend Local cards just hours before the extended deadline expires.

The scheme reopened on Christmas Eve for two weeks to accommodate people whose cards had not yet arrived.

The extension was also available to people who got cards but experienced problems trying to spend their voucher.

The Department for the Economy said it is now "considering options" for those still having problems with their cards.

The Spend Local scheme was part of an unprecedented £1.4m investment to boost the local economy after lockdowns and coronavirus-related disruption to trade.

Every adult in Northern Ireland was due to receive a £100 shopping voucher in the post towards the end of last year.

The scheme opened for applications on 27 September and was supposed to close on 30 November, but the deadline for spending the cards was extended three times due to various problems and delays.

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Those who are still waiting for their voucher include David Lemon, who has contacted the authorities multiple times about the issue over the past few months.

"I applied early and my application was successful and I got an email verifying that on 7 October," Mr Lemon told the BBC's Good Morning Ulster programme.

By the middle of November, he had not received any further information so he phoned the scheme's helpline.

"It's an automated line... there was no option to talk to anybody about not having received the card so I sent an email off then to the advertised email address.

"I just got an automated response saying that they were busy and referring me to the frequently asked questions on the NI Direct website.

"I didn't hear anything back and a week later I sent them another email and I just got another automated response."

Towards the end of November, Mr Lemon emailed the constituency office of Gordon Lyons, the Stormont economy minister who is responsible for running the Spend Local scheme.

"They came back and said that I should send off another email with the subject line 'card not received' and that worked, fair enough, I did actually get a reply.

"It confirmed once again that my details had been verified and that they would send my details off again to the card issuing company and that I should receive a card within a few days."

'99.5% received cards'

Despite that, there was still no sign of the card in the post, so Mr Lemon continued to email both the scheme and Mr Lyons during the month of December.

However, on Friday 7 January - with the latest deadline set to expire at midnight - his card has still not arrived.

Ulster Unionist assembly member Andy Allen has called on the Department for the Economy to further extend the deadline until "at least the end of January" for applicants who have lost out like Mr Lemon.

"This is not an isolated incident," Mr Allen told the programme.

"I am being contacted daily by multiple people who still have not received their card, but also people who encountered problems with their card being blocked and therefore they weren't able to use them and they still haven't been rectified."

In a statement, a Department for the Economy spokesperson said that "99.5% of eligible applicants received their cards before the scheme ended and encountered no issue with their card".

However, they explained that a "small proportion of the population" either did not receive their voucher or experienced problems activating or using their cards.

"The department is currently considering options for those affected," they added.