People living on the breadline in Leatherhead will soon be able to visit their very own food bank instead of travelling to Epsom and Ewell.
Plans are underway to start a Leatherhead food bank, which will hand out donations at North Leatherhead Community Centre in Kingston Road on Saturdays from September 28.
The decision to set up a food bank comes after 165 people from North Leatherhead were forced to do a 10 mile round trip to collect donations from the Epsom and Ewell Foodbank in the first 10 months since it launched.
County councillor Tim Hall said he is working with Dave Banko, from local church Pioneer Engage, and a group of Leatherhead churches to set up the food bank in order to meet this demand.
Coun Hall said: "One of the main aims is to make sure everybody who walks through the door gets assistance and help so they don’t end up in the same position again.
"We expect to have a mixture of people who struggled to get to Epsom."
Together with food donations he said they would check that people were getting support to deal with health and housing problems, benefit changes and other issues.
He said: "North Leatherhead has always had some of the most troubled families and relationships. We have a complete variety of circumstances of life."
He said they already had 20 volunteers and a total of £1,000, from Surrey County Council and Leatherhead churches, to start the food bank.
Various agencies, including local charity B@titude and the Citizens Advice Bureau, are also helping to identify the people most in need of food donations.
For the time being food can be donated through the Epsom and Ewell Foodbank, which issues food vouchers to people living in Epsom and Ewell as well as parts of Leatherhead and Banstead.
People are only issued a maximum of three vouchers during any one crisis - each providing enough food to feed their family for three days.
Jonathan Lees, from Epsom and Ewell Foodbank, said the new distribution point would run out of the existing food bank, which has served nearly 1,400 people since starting in October.
He said: "It's rocketing away. It makes sense to set one up at that end of the world."
The food bank asks for donations of non-perishable supplies, such as tinned food and juice cartons, as well as toiletries and nappies.
Donations can be dropped off between 9am and 5pm Thursdays and Fridays at Generation Resource Centre, off Ruxley Lane, in West Ewell.
For more information call 020 8786 8221 or email foodbank@generation.org.uk.
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