INVERCLYDE Council is setting up a £4m emergency fund and will act as a lender of last resort in a bid to keep vital services and provisions afloat through the coronavirus crisis.

Local authority leader Stephen McCabe told the Tele they would act as a life support to keep the fabric of the community together.

They are putting a £4m fund together as a starting point as they try to navigate through the economic fallout of the lockdown locally.

Councillors met in person, with social distancing, to agree the measures, with others dialling in by conference call.

Mr McCabe, who chaired the unprecedented policy and resources committee talks, said: "This is a crisis beyond comprehension. "We need to help all those who we will need when this is over.

"We need to support the childcare providers who have to be there in the future and for example companies who provide our school transport.

"We will need them when everything goes back to normal."

Mr McCabe says the council has never faced a crisis as bad and that the financial implications of it could be dire.

He said: "This is our greatest challenge.

"In many ways we will be a lender of last resort.

"We set out a plan so that we have the money in the bank to deliver our services and to help others who need it.

"The magnitude of this is something that we do not fully understand yet.

"In many ways it is worse that the Second World War, because then we knew our enemy and day-to-day life also went on."

The committee meeting agreed a plan for education and health and social care to provide the most basic services they can and they expect the £4m fund to be needed almost immediately.

Councillor McCabe added: "To think only a couple of weeks ago we were setting out a £1 million pound fund in our budget to fight poverty - and now this."

The council's chief financial officer Alan Puckrin has compiled a report spelling out the list of initial costs likely to be faced by the local authority.

These included an indication that childcare providers and school transport operators had requested contract payments to continue.

The council predict that they will also likely be expected to use residential care homes and nursing homes to free up hospital beds for seriously ill patients who need them.

The cost impact on services for the elderly is estimated around at least £1.6 million.

The finance officers are also bracing themselves for a loss in income from charges - such as parking - and many businesses have already asked to defer rent payments, with the cost of this relief forecast at around £800,000.

Councillor McCabe praised the voluntary sector for the way it has risen to the challenge and established grassroots networks of support.

He said: "We have the likes of Compassionate Inverclyde and Belville Community Garden and they are all doing fantastic work."