The Glasgow North East Foodbank has been gifted with a free van by fleet management specialist Fleet Alliance.

While a registered charity in its own right, the Glasgow North East Foodbank operates under the Trussell Trust Charity, which runs 420 foodbanks across the UK, last year alone feeding more than 346,000 people across the country.

The Glasgow NE Foodbank operates from six centres governed by their central hub at Parkhead in Glasgow. The foodbank has been running for two years and has supplied food to more than 5,300 people.

Fleet Alliance gifted the foodbank with a Renault Kangoo ML 1.9 eco2 that is to be used to transport food supplies from their central hub at Parkhead out to their six satellite centres across Glasgow as well as collecting donations from local supermarkets.

The new vehicle will also be making deliveries to the elderly and infirm, as they cannot always make the sometimes long journey to one of the centres themselves.

Glasgow NE Foodbank's Project Manager Tara Maguire commented that the provision of a free van was an outstanding gesture of community spirit by Fleet Alliance.

Maguire said that, "It is fully expensed for two years including insurance – all we have to do is add fuel. And Fleet Alliance even filled the van full of food when they handed it over to us for the first time."

"We are seeing an increased need to supply food to people in crisis in our area, both those in and out of work, and this will certainly help in our work of supporting these people."