Street collections and house-to-house charity collections

We are asking customers to only submit essential applications. Please be aware that it may take some time to review and process your application. You should expect most applications to take longer than normal to process.

To carry out house-to-house or street collections for charitable purposes in England and Wales you need a licence from Cheshire East Council. Charitable purpose means any charitable, benevolent, or philanthropic purpose, whether or not the purpose is charitable within the meaning of any rule of law. Some large charities are exempted by the Home Secretary.

Tacit consent

We are currently experiencing a high level of demand on our service and are therefore not able to process every application received for a Charity Collection within normal timescales. Therefore, if you have not heard from us by the end of the target completion period of 21 days you can assume 'tacit consent' to carry out the activities as applied for. The timescales for processing an application does not start until all the necessary information has been received in full.

Apply for a street, or house-to-house collection

You can also apply by post or through the Contact Centres at Delamere House, Crewe or Macclesfield Town Hall.

We operate a diary booking system for both these types of collections and our policy is to allow only one collection within the same town on the same day.

If you wish to promote your charity with additional activities and displays in the centre of town you must notify the Town Centre Manager.

As of the 8 January 2018 any application you make in person at one of Contact Centres must be done by appointment. To make an appointment please call Cheshire East Customer Services on 0300 123 5015.

Fees

There are no fees associated with these applications. You will be required to submit a financial statement.

Application evaluation

Once you have carried out your collection you must, within one month provide us with a financial return showing how much money was collected, any expenses and what happened to the remainder. The return must be signed by the applicant and certified by an accountant (or other independent responsible person who has previously been agreed by us).

To Submit a Charitable collection financial return statement complete the online form below.The form will take 5 minutes to complete.

Submit a Charitable collection financial return statement

To find out how we use your information see our privacy notice (opens in a new window).

Alternatively you can download the corresponding form of statement and post it to us.

Send the completed financial return statement to licensing@cheshireeast.gov.uk

Eligibility criteria

Some large charities are exempted by the Home Secretary from having to apply for a licence, although they do have to notify the Council in writing of any proposed collections.

Charitable collections policy

All applications will be dealt with in line with the Charitable Collection Policy (PDF, 163KB). Any request to depart from the policy must be set out with your application giving your reasons. All collections must also follow our Model Street Collection Regulations (PDF, 115KB)

Page last reviewed: 10 October 2023