Cradley Heath food bank sees big school uniform demand

A food bank in the West Midlands says it has been inundated with requests for school uniform as the new term approaches.

Cradley Heath Community Link has opened as a clothes bank offering uniform and PE kits, which have been donated.

The temporary clothes bank is providing uniform for nine schools in the area at no cost.

One visitor, Darren Wright, said: "If I was going to go and buy it, I'm looking at £300 for one kid."

He added: "It's good for people like us who had Universal Credit and can't afford it."

Paul Latham, from the community hub, said: "There was a small child who went to school, got his uniform dirty, went home.

"His parents hadn't enough money to put the money in the metre, so they sent him to school the following day in clean clothes, but not school uniform and the school turned round and sent him home.

"The family reached out and said 'what can you do'?"

The obligation for schools to ensure fair pricing is enshrined in the Education Act 2021, which states: "Schools should keep compulsory branded items to a minimum and avoid specifying expensive items of uniform and governing bodies should be able to demonstrate that they have obtained the best value for money from suppliers."

Ria Maynes, who has donated uniform items her children have grown out of, said it was important to help after the pandemic.

"As a parent, you need to have more uniforms because you need to wash them every day, so you end up buying more."

Another parent Tarek Yahia, who settled in Dudley after fleeing Syria, said uniform elsewhere was "very expensive".

Any uniform left over will be donated to local schools as extra supplies, the community hub said.

Follow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: [email protected]