Cost of living: Food banks and food pantries across Portsmouth area report or 'expect' spike in demand

New figures provided to The News reveal two food banks, one in Paulsgrove and one in Southsea, provided significantly more users with donations or parcels compared with July 2021 and July this year.

Acts of Kindness community food bank at Gosport have also released figures, which though show a decrease in users from July this year to August, report an increase in food parcels having to be sent out and a rise in callers in the last two weeks.

It comes following reports that millions of households in the UK are facing a ‘significant humanitarian crisis’ due to soaring energy costs, with many Portsmouth residents struggling with food costs or being left in limbo until they receive their next Universal Credit payment among their financial struggles.

Paulsgrove Baptist Church, one of the three Trussell Trust food banks in Portsmouth, saw 80 people use their service in July this year compared with 44 people in July 2021.

Their whole year report for 2021 shows they provided parcels to a total of 697 people across the area.

Their yearly report for this year, up to July 31, shows the church have already provided to 523 users so far.

Portsmouth Foodbank in Southsea, also supported by The Trussell Trust, fed 1070 people in July compared to 609 in July 2021.

A spokesperson for Portsmouth Foodbank said: ‘In January to December 2021, we fed 9,949 people and in January to July 2022 we have fed 7,472 so far, so you can see we are well above where we were last year.’

Acts of Kindness, who provide to people across The Solent, report they ‘expect’ demand to increase in coming weeks due to the cost of living crisis.

Hilary Brenmer, a trustee, said: ‘In the last couple of weeks we've definitely seen an increase in the number of calls coming in and the number of parcels we're sending out.

‘The reasons are very often, we've run out of money, we've just had to pay our bill, we've got no money left for food, there's a gap between now and our next universal credit payment or; my pay is due but it still won't be enough to cover the increase in cost of food or school holidays.

‘We haven't been surprised at all. We've seen the warning signs of the increase in the cost of living and we've been expecting it.

‘It's dreadful and it is shocking that people are driven to use food banks.’

The food bank has also seen a decrease in donations.

Hilary added: ‘We are a lot lower on donations than we used to be. Everybody's feeling the pinch so people who used to donate maybe £10 of food a week can maybe only donate £5 worth a week.’

Emily Harkness, co-founder of Hayling Island Community Pantry, which launched in February 2021, echoed that a few months ago the need was ‘still very great’ at the venue.

She said: ‘When I was there a few months ago the need was still very great, we had a very, very large number of members at that stage.’