Bradford’s Credit Union has been praised internationally for its work in helping to tackle the cost-of-living crisis.

Started by Bradford Council in 1993, BDCU has just past 9,000 members who save and borrow safely and is recognised as the first ‘Community Development Credit Union’ in the UK.

Scott Butterfield, who works with over 200 credit unions across America, visited Bradford to see these partnerships.

He said: “BDCU has built the partnership networks to create a new model here in the UK and I will be taking some of these ideas back to my network of credit unions in America.”

One project Mr Butterfield visited was FoodSavers, where Inn Churches approached the Credit Union with a new idea to help people save in the community. They wanted to explore a membership-based solution to access low-cost food with an easy way of saving into the Credit Union to build financial resilience and avoid going to Loan Sharks.

Through a growing network of community pantries the Credit Union are seeing how favourably people are responding to being able to access quality food to feed their families. There are now 12 FoodSavers outlets across Bradford District with several more in the pipeline.