High Peak offers a helping hand with personal care items

Personal care items including toiletries and sanitary products will be distributed to those in need in High Peak.

Responding to the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic has had many, and sometimes hidden, consequences for local people – and pressure on household budgets means that sanitary and other personal care items are sometimes overlooked in favour of other priorities.

High Peak Borough Council has stepped in to help ensure residents have access to the items they need.

Earlier this year, the council pledged to eradicate period poverty in the borough and agreed a range of measures - including considering the use of the Councillor’s Initiative Fund to support schemes such as ‘dignity bags’.

And in May, a number of councillors used their funds to buy reusable, recycled pads from start-up business Studio le Fay to distribute to women and girls across the High Peak.

With reports that the Covid pandemic has worsened the situation, the council say it has ordered more of these pads – and a supply of sustainable toiletries - for distribution via food banks across the borough.

Councillor Fiona Sloman, Executive Councillor with responsibility for public health, said: “Personal care items such as sanitary products and toiletries are essential and we should all have access to the things we need to take care of ourselves. Sadly, items like this can become the casualties of stretched household budgets and competing demands for limited resources.

“So I’m particularly pleased that the Council is helping to bridge that gap in the High Peak by supplying these items to food banks for distribution directly to the people most in need of this support.”