Councillor donating parcels of food and warm clothing to elderly in need

-Credit: (Image: Reach Publishing Services Limited)
-Credit: (Image: Reach Publishing Services Limited)


A Cleethorpes councillor is handing out food parcels and items to keep elderly people warm in the wake of the Winter Fuel Payment cut.

Croft Baker ward councillor, Oliver Freeston delivered around 40 hampers to elderly people during the Covid pandemic in 2021 to protect them during isolation. In that restrictive time of national emergency and repeated lockdowns, people, particularly the elderly and those at risk, were told not to go out and to social distance at all times to reduce the risk of infection.

Councillor Freeston said the cut to the winter fuel allowance by the Labour Government had also put many elderly people at risk this winter. He visited Solomon Court in Cleethorpes to deliver the first parcels to the elderly and said he would be taking more.

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They include a hot water bottle, scarf, gloves, hat, porridge, soup, throw, tea, coffee and biscuits. "To be attacking the elderly in this way is morally indefensible and wrong. Even if this helps just a few elderly people it will be worth it. After all they are the ones who can't go out and get an extra job to get money to make ends meet," said Councillor Freeston.

He added: "This is at a time when we have so many people coming to this country and being put up in hotels which are always warm. Yet we cannot look after our own pensioners. I will be funding these donations myself. If anyone wishes to support this they can take donations to Grimsby Town Hall. It helped between 35 to 40 last time and people were calling me up offering support with bags of shopping. I will be doing the same again this winter and have got it up and running."

From left David Johnson, Mally Green, Barry Groom with Councillor Oliver Freeston who is giving out warm hampers to the elderly -Credit:Grimsby Live
From left David Johnson, Mally Green, Barry Groom with Councillor Oliver Freeston who is giving out warm hampers to the elderly -Credit:Grimsby Live

At Solomon Court, he met Barry Groom, 87. The former machinist at Jackstone Fosters refrigeration firm said: "i will be ok. If I get cold, I will just put the heating up and say "Sod it.' But they (the Government) are always sitting pretty. I will just have to get more on my card. It's £10-a-week for Gas and the same for electricity and I will just have to keep topping it up."

David Johnson, 62, said: "Not all of us can afford to have heating on all the time. We won't be able to have the heating on. We will just have to sit with blankets over us. We can't go to work. We are all past it and retired. It is a disgrace."

Mally Green, 70, said: "In real terms we are losing £400 for the year because the prices have gone up 10 per cent. Yet they are sending £86million to Africa in aid. When they built these homes in the 1970s there was no insulation. It was Imperial measurement but when the new windows and doors were put in they were metric, so they are really draughty, even with all the plastic packers. You have to have the heating on all the time when it's cold."

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Retired taxi driver, Ken Smith, 95, said: "It makes us short of money. It is going to have a big impact on a lot of people."

His daughter Heather Brown said the end of the universal support to all pensioners with winter fuel payment allowance would not impact her father because he is on pension credit. But she said she is concerned for the many pensioners who are borderline for pension credit and will miss out on the allowance. "You would like to think there will be some steps taken to mitigate the impact. But they won't."

She added: "I think it is lovely someone is donating parcels. It will be a help. There are a lot of people who don't have a family member around to help them."