Covid-19 is an international crisis. Colleagues in Eurocities have been gathering responses from their member cities. You can see a live update here. Also, our partners at OECD have done excellent work on the likely macro-economic effects and produced a useful summary of city responses from around the world.

Liverpool City Council’s Good Neighbour scheme matches volunteers with people in need who don’t have anyone else nearby to help with day-to-day tasks such as shopping or collecting prescriptions. Tel: 0151 233 3066. Lines are open from 8am-6pm 7 days a week.

Belfast City Council will be delivering £735,000 of emergency community response funding to support voluntary and community groups in their response to the COVID-19 pandemic. (£485,700 from the Department for Communities and £250,000 Belfast City Council funding). Urgent services include the supply of food, community support and financial advice and funding recipients will coordinate the work of smaller local bodies to ensure support is targeted and effective, working with the council’s COVID-19 response hub. Belfast City Council has also allocated £120,000 to community organisations in north, south, east and west Belfast to support their efforts in helping our most vulnerable residents

Newcastle has launched Citylife Line - A new service that harnesses the outpouring of goodwill from residents in Newcastle has been established to ensure residents in need get the help they need during the coronavirus outbreak.
Citylife Line has been set up for people wanting to volunteer their time while also providing a service for people to register their need for assistance.
It has launched today with a webform at www.newcastle.gov.uk/citylifeline for people wanting to volunteer their time to support the wide range of established community organisations across the City or offer another type of support service to the City.

If you live in Leeds and are unable to leave your home for groceries or essentials, you can call a dedicated hotline to be matched with a local volunteer who can help. Tel: 0113 378 1877

Meanwhile, Sheffield has also launched its own Covid-19 advice line for residents. From 8:45am- 4:45pm Monday to Friday, members of the public can call 0114 273 4567 to ask any questions or raise concerns.

In Cardiff staff delivered Free school meals have continued throughout #Cardiff as 12,500 grab bags were delivered to schools, workers made sure they followed social distance guidelines! via Twitter @cardiffschmeals

#COVID19UK Live Impact Dashboard has been launched for Newcastle https://covid.view.urbanobservatory.ac.uk. It will be updated every few minutes with more indices to be added slowly and opportunities to collaborate with other cities.

Birmingham City Council and the city's communities are working together to tackle coronavirus. @BhamCityCouncil working with @BVSC to co-ordinate collective efforts.  https://bit.ly/2UcjZh4

#BrumTogether Birmingham Covid-19 Emergency Food Response Service is a partnership of the local authority and the voluntary sector organisations including Food banks, Faith Communities, and Fareshare to share intelligence and redistribute food to support socially vulnerable people in need.  https://foodfoundation.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/BCC_Covid-Report_A4_Proof3.pdf

Discover the Free Online Resources available from Manchester Libraries. https://manclibraries.blog/2020/03/18/discover-the-free-online-resources-services-available-from-manchester-libraries/

Market traders in Dudley, in the West Midlands, have repaid the council's generosity in offering them a rent holiday by offering free fruit and vegetables to local foodbanks. https://www.dudley.gov.uk/news/market-traders-repay-rent-pledge-with-foodbank-offer/

We really liked this hearfelt message from Bradford Council CEO Kirsten England to her staff after a hard week https://twitter.com/kersten_england/status/1243514761528082437?s=20

In Nottingham the Robin Hood Fund has been set up to help communities deal with the impact of Covid-19. It has already raised £10,000 which will be distrubuted to Food Banks across the city.

Birmingham Safeguarding Adults board has put together a one page guide for vulnerable people who may be forced to self isolate https://www.bsab.org/downloads/download/50/information-vulnerable-citize....

Belfast is launching a COVID-19 Belfast Community Freephone Helpline. Working closely with a wide range of community, voluntary and statutory service providers, it will provide food parcels, advice, prescription pick ups and emotional support. It also has a comprehensive online information service providing updates to Belfast citizens on how COVID-19 is impacting its services.

Also in Birmingham, the council has launched an emergency support hub to support those who are self-isolating and might not have a network of friends and family to help.

The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra has announced that it will make up to 5,000 free tickets available to NHS workers, once concerts resume following the coronavirus pandemic. Find out more and register your interest here: https://cbso.co.uk/nhs

Open Kitchen MCR is working with Manchester City Council to co-ordinate food provision for those in need across the city. More than a million airline meals are to be given away to disadvantaged people across Greater Manchester. Open Kitchen MCR, which normally intercepts food waste and turns it in to food for events, is now cooking and delivering up to 10,000 meals a week. A frozen food mountain had been growing at a storage site near Manchester Airport because of the collapse in air travel during the coronavirus outbreak; 1.1m meals have now been saved by not-for-profit group Open Kitchen MCR.  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-52412119

Meanwhile, in Cardiff, the city council has supplied 3,200 emergency food and essentials parcels since the start of the Covid-19 emergency. More information is available here http://orlo.uk/V00DE