An Islington foodbank has closed, while a food hub has been forced to reduce its intake, citing increased demand and declining donations.

The foodbank at the Ringcross Community Centre has closed, and organisers of the food hub at the Mildmay Community Centre say the "tough choice" has been made to reduce intake by 43 per cent.

Mildmay is shrinking its catchment area and serving a smaller population as rising demand and declining donations mean its resources are stretched. 

Lorraine O’Leary, who began managing Mildmay’s food hub at the start of the pandemic, said the closure of the Ringcross foodbank last month exacerbated this strain.

“I received 25 [household] referrals three weeks ago - the average per week is three,” she said. “It was either shrink our catchment area or shut.” 

While the centre previously catered to people from a large surrounding area, it can now only serve residents of the Mildmay ward. 

It is the latest adjustment in an ongoing struggle to stay open, after Islington Council withdrew support for the food bank in July 2020, citing a lack of funding. Since then, it has been run as a "co-op", with families asked to pay £1 per head.  

Although the centre is supported by three organisations, including Edible London, it is the community which props up the food hub. 

Despite acknowledging a “sense of foreboding” around the coming winter, Lorraine said the team is hopeful that scaling back intake will enable the food hub to continue running each Friday.  

The foodbank at the Ringcross Centre closed in October. It is understood the centre has plans to start a new service, but no start date has yet been announced.  

Until last month, the foodbank was run by the Alexandra Wylie Tower Foundation (AWTF), whose founder, Lindsey Wylie, said: "Numbers were increasing astronomically and donations were down. This is going to be a very hard winter and so we decided it was important to allocate our resources to those most critically affected by the current cost of living crisis."