DUNFERMLINE Foodbank is urgently seeking premises for a new distribution centre following the news that their current base has been sold.

The charity helps local people in crisis and has five branches throughout West Fife, with a central warehouse in Elgin Street to store stocks and supplies.

Fife Council generously supports the foodbank by waiving the rent for the warehouse but the premises have now been sold and the charity has been asked to move on to new premises.

John Thompson, administrator for Dunfermline Foodbank, said: “We are expecting a busy winter this year and would love to be in a new abode as soon as possible.

“The best way to describe it is we are lengthy squatters and stay in the building until it’s sold."

Having to move has proved a regular occurrence for the foodbank which has relocated their distribution centre every year or so as they rely on generous rent-free agreements with supportive landlords.

They often use empty properties that are unused until they are sold.

The charity has been at its current base in Elgin Street for the last year and before that also used another unit in the industrial estate.

John said: "It is wonderful for us to get two good years. The problem now is that a lot of warehouse space has been bought up because of Brexit.

“Supermarkets have buffer stocks in the country in case something went wrong so looking for space from our usual contacts has not given us any places yet, so we need to look further afield.

“We hope by putting this in the Press, someone might come forward to help us out.”

And unfortunately the demand has grown during the pandemic.

Activity has been so busy for the foodbank over the last four months that the charity had to look into getting shipping containers to store further supplies.

John said: “The warehouse has been full from side to side – there is no room.

“Obviously it is a good sign that the public are donating a lot and we seem to have a lot of stock from companies that usually supplied restaurants and pubs.

“Fife Council have been very helpful and have offered us another property but it doesn’t meet our health and safety requirements.

“If we don’t find somewhere by the end of September then we’ll have to find space in volunteers garages, churches etc but as you can imagine everything just becomes scattered.

“If our centres don’t get a good service from the warehouse then we don’t have a good supply to get to our clients.

“The general consensus is that in October there will be more redundancies and that means more clients for us, so we expect a very busy winter.”

Michael O’Gorman, service manager in the council's estates department, said: “The council remain supportive of the Dunfermline Foodbank. We have accommodated them rent-free for the past few years, but the arrangement was always short term pending a sale of the property.

“All the available alternative council premises in the area have been offered to the foodbank but the group have advised they are not suitable and they are now seeking alternative premises.”

The type of building the foodbank needs has around 10,000 square feet of storage space and must have easy vehicle access with good parking.

Anyone who knows of a suitable building that the charity could use for free or peppercorn rent is asked to call 07580 231286.