Cambridgeshire community fridge trial for isolated Fenland residents

Pat Hart is the tea lady at the community fridge

A community fridge offering free food to people in need is being trialled in a new part of the Cambridgeshire Fens.

The initiative, which started in the town of March, is now being trialled at Wimblington's parish hall.

Zoe Phillips, from FACT - the Fenland Association for Community Transport - said they wanted to offer help to those without transport to other towns.

Extending the initiative was saving surplus food from landfill and those using it were not being means-tested.

Wimblington is about three miles (5km) away from March, but "people can't always get the transport in for our community fridge", Ms Phillips said.

"We were speaking to a lot of people based in Wimblington and they were saying they would use the fridge in March if they could, so we've decided to bring it here to trial, to see if it works."

Now in its second week, she said it had been "really busy".

Zoe Phillips is the mobile hub coordinator for FACT

Everything on offer has been donated from local supermarkets and shops - "things that are close to their sell-by date or would be going to landfill - so it's being saved and hopefully will help some people who perhaps are on a tight budget or just need the extra little bit of help", she added.

"It's amazing what a difference it can make."

FACT has 14 part-time volunteers working at the project in the Fenland towns.

Maureen Davis, chair of Wimblington and Doddington Parish council, said: "I found out about the community fridge wanting to move out into the parishes - what they want to do is have satellites in the villages around March."

She said there were not regular buses running these routes but in Wimblington they had noticed that some mothers taking their children to school were then popping into the parish hall "for a coffee, chat and some food".

"It's real community spirit," Ms Davis said.

The new food hub is running between 10:00 and 12:00 every Friday.

"This is actually stopping food going to landfill - that's why we don't means-test, we don't ask where people live, they can just come along take what they want and then go home again," Ms Davis added.

Pat Hart, a volunteer in Wimblington, is known as the "tea lady" at the parish hall and admitted she "always has a teapot in my hand".

Helping out "keeps you busy and that's what you need to keep going", she said.