The Great “Free or Subsidised by my Council” Hunt

belfastgirl23

Belfast city council (and many others) offer cut price composting bins. In belfast cost around £5

chumbasmum

My local leisure in Cirencester will give 10% off a years membership if you work for the council e.g. teacher.
They don't offer this, you have to ask.

Sugarhunny1

Perth and Kinross Leisure Facilities offer cheaper monthly access to all their facilities if you work for certain companies. Check out there website for more details. They also give FREE access to people who live in areas of regeneration of Perth.

Perth library: Free internet access.

[Deleted User]

Free bit of paper and a yellow and black sticky envelope. All you need to do is park on a double yellow line, and a council operative will leave one for you.

:rotfl:

SomethingWitty_2

Local Libraries are your first port of call for "freebies" as most will be able to tell you about the services your council offers, not just learning related ones but generally as well.

For starters, books, dvds, magazines will be free (or very cheap),
courses are often free or heavily discounted (espescially computer related ones e.g. ECDL or learn how to use a computer courses), e learning and research facilities (e.g. brittania biography library, database of old newspapers, etc) also free.

Rubbish collection of bulky items is free in many london boroughs (though you have to pay in others), and anything to help recycling or to help save the planet is likely to be discounted, including biodegradeable waste bags.

Many larger schools will run summer schools/clubs for adults as well as children, in things like arts and crafts, will also offer evening classes, and some schools in my local area offer the use of their sports facilities to the local community... if you like five a side get a bunch of you from work etc to see if you can rent a school gym, chances are it will be cheaper than a leisure centre.

Schools can also be rented for classrooms etc for reasonable fees for any other kind of event. if you have a band, or your kids have a band, rent a classroom as practice space! friends do this.

Also pest control, drain unblocking, house clearances etc your council will either do things like this free or at a discount or be able to reommend cheap and reliable suppliers.

HTH! (Used to be a librarian we got questions about all sorts!) SomethingWitty

BexTech

Birmingham City Council.

Any kids who live in Birmingham or go to a Birmingham LEA school from 4 until they reach 16 can swim for free at the various Birmingham swimming pools. All kids under 4 free swim free. The free swim for 4 - 15 inc. has been going a few years. Just need to get a passport to leisure form filled in and verified, then a pass-card issued.

Adults on benefits can get half-price leisure (inc swimming) with a passport to leisure.

lynzpower

LB tower hamlets were doing the Wiggly wigglers wormeries for 5.00 Wigglers were selling them for 80 quid so a cracking bargain in the drive to reduce our landfill costs.

Many other councils do them too, so do have a look at what your environment division does.

Boggles1234

Calderdale Council (Halifax, West Yorkshire) offer free interent access in libraries and have just launched a dvd rental loyalty card in libraries.

Basically you get a stamp every time you rent a dvd (£1.50 - £2.50 a time) and when you have 6 stamps, you get a free rental.

geekgirl

Not sure if other councils are doing this but our local council (Milton Keynes) is renting PC's out for £1.50 per week. They are partnered with Microsoft so come with Microsoft Office already installed.

sillyrabbit

If you work for the council in Devon you can get about 25% (I think) off when you join the local leisure centre group.

Also, we have a company called Turntable in Exeter that will provide extremely cheap furniture and other items (think it's a donation of £5 for a set number of items) to those on certain benefits to get them set up in their homes.