A scheme which aims to help people into employment is delivering healthy food ingredients and recipe cards to around 20 households in the Furness area each week.

Let’s Eat is an activity delivered by The Building Better Opportunities Getting Cumbria to Work project, which supports people in the Barrow and South Lakes area aged 18 and above, who are either unemployed or economically inactive.

It aims to encourage people to eat healthily, try new recipes and cook on a budget in order to boost their health and well-being.

It is working with Barrow's The Well Communities, an organisation which does work to help people recover from drug and alcohol addiction.

Each week its staff plan a healthy, low-cost meal, produce a recipe, buy the ingredients required for people to cook the meal in their home for themselves and their families, pack everything up and hand deliver the packs directly to the doors of participants in the Barrow, Ulverston and Furness area

“Prior to the coronavirus lockdown we had been planning ways to support people to increase their budgeting and money management skills,” said project manager Natalia Wealleans-Turner.

“We were going to set up a weekly cook and eat group, but Covid-19 put a stop to face-to-face sessions. We discussed what to do with our partner organisations and The Well Communities set up the Let’s Eat activity."

She said the scheme helped "bolster people’s cooking confidence, improve their budgeting skills and it is also a way of them connecting with other family members, in particular their children.”