Cost of living: How Yorkshire can help itself by learning from Todmorden’s Incredible Edible scheme – The Yorkshire Post says

Make no mistake, the realisation that inflation is likely to top nine per cent is already proving to be a living nightmare for low income families – or benefit claimants – that Mr Sunak, MP for Richmond, did not sufficiently acknowledge in his speech this week.

Breadgate: Use your loaf, Rishi Sunak, over cost of living crisis rather than offering crumbs to the poor in Spring Statement – The Yorkshire Post says

The one glimmer of hope, however, is Yorkshire’s famed community spirit and the proven success of pioneering self-help schemes, like Incredible Edible in Todmorden, where fruit, herbs and vegetables are grown for people to share.

Now the presence of such groups – and their unerring ability to help people without embarrassing them – is going to prove invaluable as families brace themselves for the biggest fall in living standards since official records began in the 1950s.

Their example will be essential if young people accustomed to both fast food and fast fashion is to embrace the ‘make do and mend’ approach that came to define the wartime generation when families were forced – by circumstance – to improvise in order to survive.

And as the county’s network of food banks and charities – the personification of the ‘big society’ – brace themselves for even greater demand on their services, local councils, and others, should be providing extra assistance to help families manage their finances or learn how to cook healthy meals on a limited budget.

This isn’t about patronising those in need or people reluctant to accept to charity, Quite the opposite. It’s about Yorkshire showing typical compassion to the less well-off until the Government is better placed to respond to a cost of living crisis still being fuelled by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

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