RESEARCH conducted by the charity Food Foundation and Sheffield University has revealed that the BCP area ranked the third highest in the country for people struggling to afford food.

The region was also the eighth highest placed local authority region for people that worry about food in a recent analysis on food poverty across the UK.

Researchers concluded that the effects of the pandemic led to more households into hardship and exposed a newly vulnerable part of society.

A spokesperson for the Food Foundation said: “This new research shows the huge variation in food access and vulnerability to food insecurity from one local authority to the next, which needs to change.”

In response to the findings in the report the Council iterated the many schemes it has in place to try to combat the issue.

Councillor Nicola Greene, Chair for the Health and Wellbeing Board at BCP Council, in a statement to the Echo said: “We have been working tremendously hard to address food insecurity.

“Works that had commenced prior to the pandemic, which we know has had a devastating impact on so many households.”

Adding that the authority led the Dorset hidden hunger event in 2019 which resulted in a fully funded food coordinator.

“Following this, the access to food partnership was created to help those struggling to gain access to food – particularly during the pandemic,” Cllr Greene added.

However, the food poverty report concluded that only Wycombe and Merthyr Tydfil, were the only local authority areas where people were found to struggle to afford food more than the 23.8 percent in the BCP conurbation.

And only seven other regions placed higher, than the 18.75 percent in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole, where people said they worried about having food.

The authority ranked better in terms of people who were hungry at least once in the previous month but were unable to get food, at 6.7% of people.

The Found Foundation’s spokesperson called on authorities to find a sustainable solution having “played a leading role in strengthening charitable food provision” during the crisis.

“We now need to build on this with long-term policy commitments both at local and national level to really turn the tide on food insecurity and deliver on the levelling up agenda.”

Cllr Greene added: “We understand how vital this issue is to our residents which is why we will continue to help as many people impacted by food insecurity as we are able to.”