A COUNCIL has postponed a decision on giving a grant to a church food bank after councillors questioned whether it would help subsidise unhealthy lifestyles.

Ripon City Council remains split over whether Ripon Community Church’s Bread of Life scheme, which has provided emergency supplies to more than 40 families in the city since 2011, should receive up to £1,000 from the public purse.

A meeting of the authority heard while community charities and projects had applied for £58,000 of grants, the council only had £24,000 to distribute.

Independent councillor David Todd told a meeting of the authority that he feared giving the grant would allow the food bank’s users to spend the money they saved on food on alcohol and cigarettes.

He said he opposed giving money to the food bank in Water Skellgate while other projects and charities, such as St Michael’s Hospice, in Harrogate, were having their grants reduced or axed.

He said: “In a small city like Ripon, where there is no homelessness, I don't think they (the food bank) are needed.

"I'm not saying there's no poor people, but poverty is a different thing from being poor.

"If you've got a house to live in, food on the table, money coming in, you might be poor, but you're not poverty stricken."

Mayor of Ripon, Councillor Mick Stanley, said the issue had arisen after the council changed the way it allocated grants from a first-come, first-served system to one involving a committee debate.

He said: “There were some very hard decisions.”

Alec Lutton, the church’s treasurer, conceded while it was not dealing with homeless people, there were many people in the city who relied on the food bank’s parcels.

He said: "They are the ones in their houses that have children and get caught up in the benefits trap.

"They can't get to the benefit office because they have to go to Harrogate to sign on."

Government figures show there are an estimated eight rough sleepers in Harrogate district, while a Harrogate Borough Council study last year found low incomes to be a serious issue in the central Minster ward area of Ripon.

The city council will debate whether to give the food bank a grant after studying the volume of need for the service, at a meeting on July 8.