Home » Stark rise in food bank usage in Wrexham amid warning of “tsunami of need’ due to cost of living
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Stark rise in food bank usage in Wrexham amid warning of “tsunami of need’ due to cost of living

The number of people accessing food banks in Wrexham over the last six months has risen to its highest level as the impact of the cost of living crisis continues to worsen.

Figures released this week by the Trussell Trust, a charity which operates food banks across the UK, reveal the extent of the challenges people are facing due to rising food and energy costs and inflation.

Locally between April and September of this year 4,305 were handed out to residents in need of emergency food.

This is an increase on the 3,072 in the same six month period last year and a sharp rise on the 1,781 six years ago in 2017.

Of those 1,562 were children and 2,743 were adults.

Earlier this week Wrexham Council announced that it would be providing £22,000 to expand the provision at Wrexham Foodbank, which has seen an increased demand due to the rising cost of living.

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The increase locally is also seen across the UK with 1.3m emergency food parcels provided to people between April and September.

That’s a third more than the charity provided during the same period in 2021 and an increase of more than 50 per cent compared to pre-pandemic levels.

The Trussell Trust, which supports more than 1,300 food bank centres, says the cost of living emergency has created a ‘tsunami of need’, as people struggle to survive amidst the soaring costs of living.

For the first time ever demand has started to out strip donations, which have dropped due to the rising cost of living.

It coincides with a stark rise in the number of people needing emergency food, with over 320,000 across the UK forced to access a food bank for the first time between April and September.

The charity warns that food banks are at ‘breaking point’, both physically and mentally, and are set to face the hardest winter yet as they expect to provide more than 7,000 emergency food parcels a day on average in the next six months.

Emma Revie, chief executive at the Trussell Trust, said: “These new statistics show that, even in summer months, people are struggling to afford the essentials and we are expecting that this winter will be the hardest yet for food banks and the people they support. This is not right.

“We know that with the right support and a stable and sufficient income, people don’t need to turn to food banks for support.

Over the last few years, the government has acted to protect people who are struggling, and this action has had made a difference. They must now act again: with swift support now to help people through the winter, and with vision for the longer-term to ensure that social security is always enough to weather challenging times.

“We are calling for the Prime Minister to act decisively in next week’s budget.

“We urge the UK government to realise their commitment of supporting people on the lowest income with a broad package of support. As well as ensuring that benefits rise with inflation as soon as possible, this must go further to close the gap between price rises and incomes over the winter.”

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