The strains of the Covid pandemic and the crippling cost of living have made Newcastle’s biggest foodbank busier than ever before.
The West End Foodbank handed out more food parcels in March than in any other month since it launched 10 years ago. Charity bosses have spoken out about the scale of the hardship crisis facing thousands of people across the city’s deprived communities, after figures last week revealed a record number of emergency parcels had to be issued by foodbanks across the country.
John McCorry, the West End Foodbank’s chief executive, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service the food it gave out in 2022/23 reached a “staggering” 62,000 people. He said: “It seemed like we had come out of Covid and were starting to get back to what seemed like some kind of normality, then the cost of living crisis hits.
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"That window did not give people enough time to recover. The deeper the recession has become for people on low income and on benefits, the further they have been pushed into hardship.”
The West End Foodbank has confirmed that it issued 23,709 parcels in the 12 months to April 2023, a 39% increase on the previous year, and a record 2,500 this March alone. Among its latest initiatives is the opening of a new community pantry in Blakelaw.
Rather than the usual foodbank operation, it gives users the opportunity to pay a flat £5-a-week membership fee to do their weekly shop there. It is hoped that the centre will reach people who are reluctant to use a foodbank because of the stigma that can be attached to taking charity, with John confirming that there are plans to open more pantries across the city.
The foodbank has grown substantially since it opened in 2013 and now operates from seven welfare hubs in Benwell, Byker, Heaton, Lemington, Newbiggin Hall, West Denton, and the West Road. Its lifeline services also now extend to welfare support – with staff having helped people claim around £1.5m in benefits they are entitled to in just a year.
Welfare adviser Courtney Knowles joined the foodbank in January last year and has noticed a big change in the number of people coming through its doors in that time – supporting 700 clients in the last three months alone. She said: “A lot of people are losing their jobs and they just are not able to keep up with the cost of things.
"People who have never claimed benefits before are now having to do that and they can’t believe how little money they get, they just can’t live on it. And for people who have claimed benefits before and been able to get by, they are now seeing a massively increase in their costs and there is no proper support out there to help them up.”
Carole Rowland, who manages the foodbank’s Pathways programme, has seen the scale of the foodbank’s operation grow and grow as the deprivation crisis has deepened over recent years. She estimates that 30% of people who use the foodbank are actually in paid employment.
While taking huge pride in the charity’s efforts to help people find longer-term solutions to their struggles, Carole worries that there are still many residents they do not reach.
She said: “I don’t want people to think we have solved it all. The people we see are the tip of the iceberg, the people who can come to us and have the courage to come to us – and they are brave to do it. What I worry about is the rest of the iceberg that we don’t see.”
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