RENFREWSHIRE is bucking a national trend for foodbank reliance during the Summer holiday, according to charity bosses.

Anti-poverty charity the Trussell Trust warned that this summer could be the busiest ever for foodbanks across Scotland.

However, Renfrewshire Foodbank manager Elizabeth Alexander believes this has not been the case in Paisley and surrounding areas.

She said: “We have never found our numbers go up during the school holidays.

“We found they steadied out and go down a wee bit.

“With Renfrewshire Council, if you’re entitled to free meals during the year then you’re entitled to it during the school holidays.

“We still have a lot of people coming and we are still giving out masses of foods but it’s not the quantities that we have the rest of the year.”

The council has also provided the foodbank with funding for its transport project, which means people who have walked miles to the facility are given a bus ticket for the return journey home.

Elizabeth added: “If people are having to walk miles with food, we can give them a bus ticket and it makes it easier for them to get home.

“You can actually see the relief on people’s faces when they realise they don’t have to walk eight miles with food.

“It’s a lot of food they’re carrying. People walk long distances. People who live at the top of Foxbar are walking down to Paisley.

“People in Johnstone might be embarrassed and walk to the Paisley one because they don’t want to bump into people they know.”

Renfrewshire Council has invested £2 million into a programme tackling poverty in the area in recent years.

The funding was spread across 50 separate projects, addressing a range of issues from health, income and employment to welfare, attainment and managing money.

One of the projects, called Families First, puts on clubs where children can receive a hot meal.

Single adults make up the majority of those using Renfrewshire Foodbank and Ms Alexander has asked for people to donate tinned fish, potatoes and tomatoes, non-perishable fruit juice, biscuits, adult toiletries, such as toothpaste, soap and shampoo, and long life bags.

While foodbanks provide a vital service, the Trussell Trust’s director of operations Samantha Stapley was adamant they are not a “long-term solution”.

She said: “Foodbanks cannot, and must not, be a long term to solution to hunger at any time of year.

“No one should face going hungry, and although our network will be doing all they can this summer to help families struggling to make the money they have stretch to cover the essentials, no charity can replace people having enough money for the basics.

“There are changes we can make as a nation to help during the holidays, but if we are to protect each other from hunger whatever the time of year, we have to go further than that.

“We know particular groups of people are most likely to need a foodbank, so let’s make sure no one is swept into destitution.

“Our benefits system can, and must, act as an anchor to protect people from being pulled into poverty.”