LEISURE bosses have stepped in to help a local community project increase deliveries of vital self-isolation food boxes to people trapped at home during the coronavirus outbreak.

Belville Community Gardens has been inundated with requests for help since setting up a relief effort.

Their operation has now outgrown their own premises.

In a bid to give their army of volunteers enough room to continue their lifeline work Inverclyde Leisure has handed Crawfurdsburn Community Centre over to them.

Since the outbreak started Belville have made up 400 boxes packed with essentials and recruited an army of more than 50 volunteers.

Manager Laura Reilly said: "It is so much better now we are in Crawfurdsburn.

"We can't thank Inverclyde Leisure enough for stepping in to help.

"Now we can make sure we are keeping our volunteers safe as well.

"The response we have had from people to all of this has been incredible.

"We have people volunteering to help in all kinds of way - the community is really coming together."

Belville now even have a mobile phone app up and running to set out a shift pattern for their volunteers.

But with an increasing demand for boxes for vulnerable people who are self isolating or struggling, they knew they urgently needed bigger premises.

Inverclyde Leisure offered to give them the community centre free of charge as it has closed for activities as a result of the COVID-19 public health emergency.

Operations manager and head of community facilities Ian Dyer said: "We just want to do all we can at this time to help support the people of Inverclyde.

"That is what we are here to do.

"This is an unprecedented situation for us all but it is brilliant to see the response from the whole community.

"We want to do whatever we can to help as well.

"Belville Community Gardens came to us and asked for premises and we were delighted to assist."

Crawfurdsburn Community Centre was run for many years by local people and was used for activities such as kids' clubs.

Belville Community Gardens is an eco-group set up to reduce food waste and food poverty.

In normal circumstances they run workshops and classes from their premises as well as an outdoor space supporting vulnerable people.

Laura added: "It is great to do whatever we can to help people.

"We have links with the supermarkets so we had food supplies we could use and it has just taken off from there - we have had so many donations and we are so grateful."