Castle Douglas foodbank wants to extend services in a new building
An application has been submitted.
A Castle Douglas foodbank wants to take over another building to extend its services to the community.
An application has been submitted, as the place on St Andrews Street is owned by the local Common Good Fund.
This is part of a consultation process after the council has shown intentions of selling the building.
A petition for the Stepping Stones Larder and Foodbank to extend its premises and offer financial and housing advice has already received over 500 signatures.
The crew at the foodbank have been actively tackling local food poverty over the last few years and now distributes around 100 weekly food baskets.
Lead trustee Keith Heron says, “People have needs for advice, regarding benefits or housing or health matters. We’re not able to do that because we’ve got a very small space. People obviously can’t talk about confidential matters if they’ve got their neighbour standing next to them in the shop.
“We need to find a little bit more room so we can start giving people this confidential advice to people, and there is a building next door to us which is sitting empty. We would like to be able to use that so we can offer more services.
“It could mean that people could access a whole range of benefits, like cutting their fuel bill or getting advice for housing and other things that we would no doubt be delivering over time but want to get on with straight away.”