Food bank expecting 'huge increase' in demand amid rising energy prices
One of Shropshire's biggest food banks says it is anticipating a "huge increase" in demand with hard-pressed donors now becoming users of the service.
There has been concern at the impact of increasing petrol and energy prices, with the Government facing repeated calls to provide more help ahead of the Chancellor's Spring Statement.
Karen Williams, who runs Shrewsbury's Food Bank Plus, said that the situation is stark, with the service seeing a steady rise in the number of users since the start of the year – from 92, to 177 last week.
She said there are also more people who are in work who are having to use its services – leading to the opening of evening sessions to allow people time to visit.
She said: "I think we, as an organisation, are anticipating a huge increase in usage, particularly from April with the cap gone on fuel because I have noticed that as the reason a number of clients are quoting as to why they are using the food bank.
"We have started to open on Wednesday evenings because we noticed a lot of clients were in work and unable to come in the day and now it is our second busiest day.
"I think people's budgets have stretched and at some point they can't stretch any more."
Mrs Williams said that the fuel duty cut of 5p per litre would not help people who are already struggling to pay for petrol at all.
She said: "Fuel duty has been cut by 5p a litre but I have got people ringing saying they cannot come to the food bank because they can't fill their car up with petrol.
"It is great it is reducing by 5pm a litre but if you cannot fill up your car at all it is not going to help. This is something we have noticed with rural poverty."
Mrs Williams said one of the main issues was that people's jobs are no longer covering their overheads.
She said: "As an individual in work being paid enough so you can pay your bills is important. If you are in work and you can't pay them but you can't do more hours what do you do?"
Mrs Williams said the service was now seeing people who needed help that had previously been the ones supplying goods to the food bank.
She said: "A lot of people do not choose to get into debt. It is just circumstances. People want to pay fuel bills, they want to buy food for their children. They do not want to be using a food bank but we are now having donors who are now using the food bank."
