A Paisley charity has announced it will cease operating a food pantry in the area and that its second-hand superstore will close.
Recovery Across Mental Health (RAMH) has been forced to step back from running the Paisley Food Pantry on Causeyside Street due to “increasingly difficult circumstances”.
The pantry was a non-means tested and open-to-all facility which provided food and other goods for a fraction of the standard retail price.
REstore, which is on the ground floor of the Causeyside Street site, provides good quality household essentials at reasonable prices while also saving these items from landfill, and it will be closed by the end of next month.
RAMH chief executive Stephen McLellan said finding stock for the pantry had become harder as the cost-of-living crisis shows no sign of easing.
He explained: “We have been increasingly challenged with finding consistent, good quality food for our members.
“We recognise the support of local retailers, but we are also aware of the challenges many of them face in sustaining their businesses in increasingly difficult circumstances.
"As a local charity, we are unable to continue to absorb the costs associated with staffing, administration and collection and delivery of donations. Add to this the general cost of living, utility and fuel costs and it is just impossible to continue.”
The downfall of REstore is because of a combination of factors relating to footfall on Causeyside Street and the cost-of-living crisis, and Stephen added: “What we’re finding is that the footfall in Paisley centre is fairly minimal.
“There are fewer people coming into our shop, plus, with the general cost of living fewer people are buying new items, fewer people are going out and buying new settees or kitchens or whatever and as a consequence of that they’re not then passing on their used stuff to us, so we have fewer items to sell.
“Then, you’ve got the general cost of utilities, of fuel, and everything that goes with it, insurance, rent, etc. They’ve all gone up exponentially and that’s made it unviable.
“As a charity, we could no longer subsidise, because we have been subsidising it to try and make it successful and sustainable, but it’s no longer viable I’m afraid, so very, very sadly, we took the decision, we had to just cut it off.”
RAMH is now looking for somebody to take the buildings and facility at 24 Causeyside Street off its hands.
The charity will continue to provide support to the Star Project’s Pantry and Linwood’s Active Communities Pantry; making deliveries for the next few months before those organisations take over.
“It’s not for the want of trying to make a success of it,” Stephen said. “The staff and the volunteers have knocked their pan in, they really have gone above and beyond to make a success of it.
“But there’s just not enough people coming through the doors to make it a viable commercial element.”
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