The Alexandra Darwen becomes 'warm hub' for struggling people

The Alexandra Darwen has announced it is inviting locals to come and have a free brew or glass of water whilst keeping warm.

The local boozer said they know everyone is struggling and completely understand heating homes at the minute is hard.

They don't expect anyone to buy food or drink and just want people in need to take shelter there.

Paul Dean, landlord alongside John Scott, said: "It came about because we ran a foodbank from the pub on the bank holiday weekend of the Queen's funeral because the food bank in Darwen was closed for the day so we reached out and spoke to a lady called Jade Patterson who runs a lot of community events and we got talking and we did the food bank from the pub for the day which was very successful and worked out well.

"And then since then we have been speaking to a lot of our customers, it's a hot topic at the minute about how much everyone's bills are and a lot of people are struggling.

"So we sort of thought well we are heating the pub up we have a big log burner and we have the heating on and we have such a vast space it just seemed a shame for a lot of the space to be going to waste, especially during the day.

"So we have decided to offer the pub out for anyone who is struggling, to come and just get warm for a few hours or stay the whole day and we have had a really nice response from it and a lot of people have been coming in and customers are making soup for us and giving us logs for the fire.

"It's like everyone is coming together to help out and it's always been a community pub The Alexandra, so it's nice people are doing all they can to help.

"We have also managed to sort the TV at the top end of the pub so when people come in we just hand them the remote and tell them 'to just put what you want on love' and we get them a cup of tea.

"We've had a lot of people come in but we are trying to reach out to social groups now; people who are vulnerable, people who are over 50 and if we get a group of them in we can set up activities such as bingo just to try and keep everyone engaged.

"It's incredibly important we support people during the cost of living crisis.

"We have been speaking to our regular customers and there are stories that you hear about and these people aren't destitute, they are working families with kids and people are even struggling with day-to-day stuff it's unbelievable how much.

"It's not just people that are on very low incomes that are struggling even quite affluent families are still struggling to make ends meet and get the bills paid at the end of the month and put food on the table.

"As a business, we have been struggling too because we have had huge energy bills as well so that's why we have the wood burner in now. "Seriously if you need a time-out, come down. We’re here for you."

The pub is open each day from 2pm and is offering free water, soda, a warm brew and even a bowl of soup with a bread roll.