Portsmouth Family Church minibus used for food bank deliveries is stolen

Family Church Portsmouth had the locked vehicle swiped from outside their base at the Empower Centre in Buckland, Portsmouth, between 8am and 8.30am on Wednesday.

Executive pastor Steuart Payne said: ‘One of our team had parked it up there and brought the key back in the building.

‘Someone else went out there about half an hour later looking for it, but it had gone.

‘The key had still been inside, so whoever took it must have hotwired it and got away pretty quickly.

‘We’re quite busy at that time of day at the back of the building with people coming and going, so it must have happened almost right under noses without anyone seeing.’

The church is now hoping someone will have seen the minibus, or could help them out with the loan of one until their insurance comes through.

‘This has been reported to the police but due to the lack of evidence, CCTV footage, witnesses or a suspect, there won't be an investigation,’ said Mr Payne.

‘The minibus is used by our community and youth teams on a regular basis, and it's been an essential vehicle for our food bank and baby basics teams when delivering food and essential items to families referred to our services. This just makes it much more difficult for our team.’

Unlike some food banks, the church delivers its hampers rather than having people come to them. They deliver about 80 hampers a week.

The minibus had also been converted to accommodate wheelchair access.

Mr Payne added: ‘Although the vehicle was insured, we're unlikely to be able to recover the full replacement value, particularly given the cost of the wheelchair access conversion – that alone cost about £2,000.

‘We’ve also been told that it will take several weeks for the claim to come through.

‘We are taking our youth team away to an event in a couple of weeks, and now we are going to have to hire a bus for that as well.’

Mr Payne added: ‘If anyone has any information about the minibus we’d love to hear from them. If anyone does have a minibus they could loan us for a while that would be amazing.

‘Or if they could spare the time to help out at the food bank and with the baby basics.’

Contact the church on e-mail at [email protected] or by phone at 0300 302 0090.

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

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