Tenants and groups are given cost-of-living support funds
Tenants of Trust Housing living on Arran were given a huge cost-of-living boost this week.
All 290 tenants are to be given £100 Co-op vouchers to help with their shopping bills.
Trust Housing recently collaborated with its community partners on Arran to secure grant funding of £30,500, with £20,000 awarded by the National Lottery, supplemented by £10,500 from both Trust Housing and contributions from some of its suppliers via voluntary community benefit funding.
The funding will also provide financial support to three community partner groups who are contributing to reducing cost-of-living pressures on the island.
On Monday Trust used the lunch club at the McKelvie Road retirement housing in Lamlash to announce the voucher scheme and hand over £500 of funding to the three groups:
Arran Community and Voluntary Services (ACVS) - ACVS runs a fortnightly lunch club at the two Trust retirement developments on Arran, both for its tenants and older people in the wider community.
Trust support will allow the latter to provide approximately 125 no-cost meals to vulnerable islanders who have been particularly disadvantaged through the cost-of-living crisis.
Arran Pioneer Project which promotes better land use and localised food production and the pioneers run a community garden project with Trust tenants, growing food in the raised beds at the Glen Estate retirement housing development.
Eco Savvy - which runs a zero-waste cafe, a food share scheme and a community shop that promotes reuse and upcycling of household goods.
The six suppliers which provided community benefit funding are MAST Architects, NBM, G3, Alexander, Bell & Christie, Alexander Anderson and Ewing Sommerville Partnership.
Neil Wilkinson, Trust’s customer partner on Arran, said: “Many Arran residents, and many of our tenants on the island, are especially badly hit by the national cost-of-living crisis.
“Prices for essentials, from bread to bus fares to electricity, are so much higher here. We are delighted to have secured lottery funding to support our tenants with £100 Co-op vouchers, and to secure funding too for three local charities that work with us to reduce living costs on the island.”
Rhona McLeod, Trust’s CEO, added: “These are very difficult times, so we were delighted to access this funding and collaborate with three community partners to provide a little extra support for our customers and the wider Arran community.
“We are very grateful to the National Lottery and the six suppliers which contributed to the funding.”
Carol Norton, ACVS operations manager, said the funding would allow them to extend the free lunch club meals, which have been available since the start of the year, beyond April.
She said: “Arran Community and Voluntary Service is delighted to accept £500 to go towards funding free meals at the Brodick and Lamlash lunch clubs.
“The lunch clubs, run fortnightly by volunteers, alternate between Brodick (Glen Estate) and Lamlash (McKelvie Road) each week.
“Lunch clubs, which recently restarted after a long pause during Covid, have seen many people coming together each week in a warm friendly environment, enjoying fresh wholesome food.”
Helen Ross, chairperson of Arran Eco Savvy, said they were “delighted” to receive the funding from Trust Housing adding: “We have some exciting ideas about how we plan to use this very welcome grant.
“We are very aware many are struggling with paying fuel bills and being able to afford to eat healthily so we plan to use the £500 towards the cost of a workshop that demonstrates how to prepare a healthy meal using low energy with a variety of appliances and calculates the financial, energy and health costs and benefits and the time it takes for each type of appliance - e.g. oven, haybox, pressure cooker, air fryer and slow cooker/crock pot.”