A COUNCILLOR is calling on community groups to set up a foodbank to help the most needy residents in his village.

Queensbury councillor Michael Walls came up with the idea after one villager was turned away from a church-run foodbank in Bradford because he did not have the right postcode.

Unemployed plasterer Paul Clare, 44, went to theTrussle Trust's Bradford Central Foodbank only to be given a food parcel as a one-off gesture and told he could not go back because he lived in BD13.

"It was made clear I would not be able to go back. I've been banned for not living in the right place but people in BD13 get as hungry as everyone else. I felt degraded," he said.

Cllr Walls said he was disgusted to hear what had happened to Mr Clare. As a result, he is looking at Queensbury setting up its own foodbank to make sure locals do not go hungry.

"I had no idea it was a postcode lottery when it came to getting food parcels. I was disgusted to hear what happened to this man. It took a lot for him to go and ask for help. He has worked for 28 years until just recently losing his job, he went there out of desperation. I rang the foodbank concerned to check it out myself and they confirmed it. If you are not in postcode one to five, then seven to eight you are banned from it," he said.

A Trussle Trust spokesman for the Bradford Central Branch, based at the Jubilee Centre in Jermyn Street, said it had reduced the area it helps because it was getting too big and were advised to do so by the Trussle Trust. It now covers BD1 and all the other postcode areas that touch it - BD2, BD3, BD4, BD5, BD7 and BD8. A Bradford North branch opened in Eccleshill last year for the BD2, BD9, BD10, BD17, BD18 areas and Calverley Village in LS28.

"We rely on the public for our donations and have to have some kind of structure. We only give out parcels to people who have vouchers from the job centre and are in the areas we cover. If people from out of our areas slip through and still turn up with a voucher we would not turn them away. We gave food to people from Queensbury a couple of times when that happened last month.

"Even though we condensed our areas last year we still doubled the number of parcels we gave. To cover more areas we would need more food donations and more places to store it all," said a spokesman for the Trust.

In the last six months, its biggest demand for food parcels has come from BD4 - which takes in the Bierley, Bowling, East Bierley, Laisterdyke and Tong areas.

Recently one of its volunteers left the Central Branch to open a foodbank in Wyke, the spokesman added: "So other foodbanks are being set up. It would be great if Queensbury got involved and we would certainly support this."

Cllr Walls said he would be talking to the local church and to people at the Queensbury Community Programme.