A population the size of Aviemore’s is now dependent on Highland food banks, shock new figures show.
Almost 3,000 people are relying on charitable help to feed themselves, with the number of centres set up to provide for them expanding.
The scale of the operation, combined with growing demand for debt advice, has fuelled a campaign to have the controversial Universal Credit benefit scrapped.
Christian charity Blythswood already runs 10 foodbanks in Inverness, Aviemore, Nairn, Dingwall, Alness, Tain, Kyle, Wick and Thurso.
In the first six months of the year, the charity fed 2,774 people – 117 more than the same period in 2016 and the equivalent of almost every resident of the ski resort.
Culloden could be the next to see a emergency help point set up for hard-pressed residents.
Finlay MacKenzie, of the Invergordon-based outfit, said demand for its services was “reasonably constant.”
Mr MacKenzie has worked to alleviate hunger in some of the world’s worst hotspots and is saddened that such volunteer-run foodbanks are required in Scotland.
“It’s a shame for our country,” he said, “especially that people in work find it difficult to have enough to eat.”
Graham Ross, chairman of the council-led Inverness Community Partnership created to tackle poverty in the city, said: “There’s been an increase in rent arrears and the number of people attending foodbanks has risen. Universal credit has had a huge impact and it’s worrying.”
Inverness Citizens Advice Bureau (Cab) is running at full capacity, according to its manager and Liberal Democrat city councillor Alasdair Christie.
He said: “In many cases, our clients have had to wait seven weeks for benefit payments. It puts an incredible pressure on people.”
Smithton and Culloden Community Council chairman David McGrath, who also works for the Cab service, said: “There are now effectively ‘two Cullodens’ – the affluent quarter up the hill with all the private houses and the rest. There are people in desperate need.”
SNP MP Drew Hendry said the Universal Credit system must be overhauled “to work to alleviate, not increase poverty.”
Pointing to a recent forecast by the Institute of Fiscal Studies of a million more UK children living in poverty by 2020, Mr Hendry said: “Parents should not be going to work day in, day out, only to be unable to feed their children or heat their home.
“The horrendous roll-out of universal credit, the Tories’ ‘one-payment’ social security system, has seen thousands more families plunged into poverty here in the Highlands.”
He said the system was so complex that even staff at the Department for Work and Pensions and Job Centre Plus fail to understand it.
But a spokesman for the Conservatives yesterday accused the SNP of “blaming everything on Westminster.”
He insisted the Scottish Government had a range of welfare powers under the Scotland Act at its disposal including the ability to top up or create new benefits.
“So far, however, Scottish ministers have only used a small portion of the powers devolved,” he said.