Falkirk Council: Dennyloanhead food pantry's worry over rising costs

Dennyloanhead Community Hall, which provides support to vulnerable people in their area, receives £11,000 from Falkirk Council towards its overall running costs of £40,000.

Members of Falkirk Council’s external scrutiny committee heard on Thursday that the hall – formerly known as the Archibald Russell Centre – is doing a vital job and has been operating an emergency food provision to over 63 families per week from April 1, 2021 to March 31, 2022.

That is an increase of 20 per cent on last year’s figures and the report to members said that feedback from centre users suggests this will continue to increase as the cost-of-living increases take affect during winter 2022.

Mark Meechan, community learning and development manager, said: “The feedback the committee are getting is that people are very worried about the future and what they can spend and they are having to reduce their heating and electricity.

“A number of people are reporting that they are switching everything off in the evening so they are not keeping stuff running.”

He told councillors that the committee was now starting to look at how to cope with the cost of the increased demand that is expected to hit over the winter and they have been speaking to other food banks about how they will manage that.

The hall itself is also facing an increase in its electricity and gas costs of 30 per cent, which they will also need to find funding for.

Before Covid-19 hit, Dennyloanhead Community Hall provided many activities that were forced to stop during the pandemic.

Since re-opening the centre in October 2021, councillors heard there had been a slow take-up from centre users and numbers have dropped.

Councillor Lorna Binnie asked what was being done to encourage people to return.

Mr Meehan: “Speaking to the committee, they recognise there was a slow uptake from the over-50s coming back and they actually contacted a lot of them by phone and also went to visit them to see if there was any support that they could offer to bring them back out.

“I think it was all down to people’s confidence, in that age range – they weren’t too confident about coming back out and mixing with other people and they were not convinced that Covid had gone away completely.

“A lot of them had underlying health conditions, as you can imagine.”

In response, he said, the committee has been trying to set up more groups but keeping the numbers in them very small and there were signs that people are coming back.

Over recent years, the group has seen its funding from Falkirk Council cut and the threat of more cuts is always present. The report stressed that any further reductions would mean many of the hall’s services could not continue.

The hall hosts many groups, for all ages, and is always busy with parties and other events at weekends, all of which generate income.

Councillors were told that they try to keep the hall affordable although this had to balanced with covering costs and members of the management committee did a lot of the cleaning and tidying up themselves to keep costs down.