Welfare benefit cuts and the new bedroom tax, as well as delayed benefit payments are significantly adding to demands being made on the Devizes and Marlborough food banks.
“It is an open problem now — absolutely,” Alan Beamish, 69-year-old co-ordinator of the two food banks, told Marlborough News Online. “The need is really out there.
“Yet if you listen to the Tory press or people like Edwina Currie, they say there is no need for food banks. Even Cabinet minister Iain Duncan Smith says people have got money. And he claims he can live on £56 a week. It really is amazing.
“People say to me Devizes is a prosperous little town. So is Marlborough. But they have still got pockets of deprivation -absolutely.”
Christ Church, Marlborough, has been a permanent collection point for food donations, along with other churches, for three years.
But now every Friday, between 10 and 12noon, church is a collection point for families facing a crisis in food who need urgent help.
They have been indentified by a variety of 45 agents – ranging from social services and mental health teams to the Citizen’s Advice Bureau and Aid UK – who give the families a red voucher to pick up a three-day supply of food.
So far eight families and one individual have been helped.
“The demand has definitely increased because of the benefit cuts and bedroom tax,” added Alan. “So where we were seeing people who were basically unemployed seeking help, we are now seeing those in part-time employment, people who have lost their overtime or their wage has been frozen for two or three years.
“Last year Devizes and Marlborough collected 10 to 12 tonnes of donated food and last year we fed 15,000 people. Now we are almost at that figure this year.
“We give out at least a tonne of food a month and fortunately collect a tonne of food too.”
A retired drugs advisory service worker, Alan hears harrowing stories due to job loss, bereavement or illness, but the majority are now due to benefit cuts and also delays in benefit payments.
“If you are on job-seekers allowance it might be three months before benefits actually kick-in,” he explained. And now they have done away with the social fund payments, they pass the people on to the local food bank, which is a bit unfair because it means we are doing the government’s work for them.”
Merial Larkin, from Great Bedwyn, where she collects food donations, which she brings to the Marlborough food bank, is Alan’s vital helper.
“I have seen abject poverty there,” she told Marlborough News Online. “There is clearly a problem now as you discover reading newspapers and seeing reports online.”
The next food bank collection at Waitrose in Marlborough, is on September 7.
“That lasts all day long and people are generous,” said Alan.
“Well-spoken, well-dressed ladies often come along and say, “I was in that predicament a few years ago. So what we do stirs their conscience.”