It is a sign of the straightened circumstances in which many people are now living that at the Cedarwood Trust community centre in the north-east England town of North Shields business has never been so brisk.
The number of people using the facility on the Meadow Well housing estate tripled during the Covid-19 pandemic, and the cost of living crisis has inflicted a fresh wave of economic pain on people already struggling to pay food and energy bills.
As a result, the Cedarwood centre is now a lifeline for mums and toddlers using the free early learning centre, or residents subscribing to a “community pantry” stocked with surplus supermarket food. On the day the Financial Times visited there were six new sign-ups alone.
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