A town council has refused to provide grant funding for a food bank because councillors wanted a guarantee that it would be spent on residents.
Chatteris Town Council deferred a decision on an application by Ely Food Bank, which now runs Chatteris Food Bank, for cash from its annual grants funding at its July meeting amid concerns the money would be spent on staffing costs.
The food bank was run by volunteers free of charge through the town's parish church for many years, but that changed last summer when the Trussell Trust announced it was moving the food bank to the Chatteris Salvation Army premises.
The volunteers who had been running the food bank for nearly a decade, and had given their time free of charge, were given no warning of the move before being told they were no longer needed.
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However, the application was back on the agenda at Tuesday night's meeting, and members were once again unhappy about giving money to Ely Food Bank.
They felt there were still insufficient reassurances that the money would be wholly spent on feeding Chatteris families in need.
Cllr Sue Unwin said there was a really "bad history" with the way the Chatteris Food Bank had been taken over and said they had not been given proof the money would be going to people who need.
Cllr Anne Hay said she was totally against giving the grant because the food bank was now run by people who were paid, unlike when the church was in charge and everyone was doing it voluntarily.
And Cllr Pete Murphy agreed there was no real proof of how the money would be spent.
However, the council's financial officer, Angela Papworth, said the food bank had provided figures to show it had helped 12 to 14 families a week.
Some councillors said they would rather buy food than hand over the money.
In the end, it was unanimously agreed not to provide funding.
However, councillors did approve a grant of £500 to the Cambridgeshire Bobby Scheme - another application which was deferred from last month.
The scheme, which is run jointly by the police and Cambridgeshire High Sheriff's office, helped 11 vulnerable people/victims in Chatteris in the previous year.
It was looking for a grant of £2,053, which would help a similar number this year, but the town council only had £2,270 left in the pot for the rest of the financial year.
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