Plans have been drawn up to expand Hertfordshire’s network of community supermarkets in a bid to help those struggling with the cost of the weekly shop.

The stores, which offer a wide range of healthy food options and everyday essentials, are designed to make it easy to access affordable, nutritious groceries close to home.

On every visit, residents can shop for up to 20 items, all priced at £1 or less. The £220,000 proposals to expand the current network of eight community supermarkets would be funded from the Government’s new Crisis Resilience Fund (CRF). The fund – which replaces the Household Support Fund (HSF) – supports vulnerable households facing financial crisis as a result of cost-of-living pressures and to support them to avoid repeat crises.

On Monday, the expansion plans were highlighted to county councillors as part of wider proposals for Hertfordshire’s £9.1 million CRF allocation.

placeholder image — Hertfordshire County Council

At a meeting of the children’s social care cabinet panel, head of service Kristy Thakur told councillors that they were proposing to set up at least one community supermarket in every district or borough and that there would be further investment in the mobile community supermarket for rural areas.

Unlike the HSF, the CRF cannot be used by the county council to provide holiday supermarket vouchers for families claiming benefit-related free school meals.

But the plans do include projects to provide support and financial advice focused on areas that include crisis payments, housing payments, resilience services and community co-ordination.

According to the proposals outlined to county councillors, £1.86m will be allocated to a ‘children and family crisis support fund’ for the provision of food and energy vouchers to eligible families, as well as young carers, care leavers and homeless families.

A further £1.25m will be allocated to a ‘welfare assistance scheme’ to support residents facing immediate financial crisis, with a one-off payment to help with the costs of essential living expenses such as food, gas and electricity.

The proposals include £275,00 plans for staff from the council’s money advice unit to offer family finance advice and a further £50,000 for them to support parents of disabled children with welfare benefits advice.

There are plans to allocate £800,000 to Citizens Advice to support residents on issues that include debts, benefits , housing and employment, and £400,000 for an outreach project as well as £110,000 for Age UK to advise older people, reflecting increasing demand.

The proposals also include £220,000 for a project to support young people leaving care, £80,000 for strength and mobility classes in deprived areas and £110,000 for home safety checks.

There are £330,000 plans to deliver hot meals to adults who may struggle to prepare food safely, including older or disabled residents, those recently discharged from hospital or experiencing temporary illness.

Meanwhile, grants of up to £500 could be made available to groups to help transport residents to clubs, activities or community spaces, with ‘festive’ grants to deliver food for community events . A further £110,000 has been earmarked for a ‘loneliness project’ designed to develop community groups.

The council has received a three-year allocation from the CRF of £9.1m a year for each of the first two years (2026-27 and 2027-28) and £11.4m in 2028-29.

The increase in the third year reflects the expectation that Hertfordshire’s existing county, district and borough councils will be replaced with unitary authorities. As such, it includes the addition of ‘discretionary housing payments’, which are currently allocated to district and borough councils.

The proposals were endorsed by the cabinet panel and will be considered by a meeting of the council’s cabinet on Wednesday (March 18).

The current eight community supermarkets are Grovehill Community Centre in Hemel Hempstead; Organ Hall Community Centre, Borehamwood; Jackmans Community Centre, Letchworth; Mill End Community Centre, Rickmansworth; Hilldyke Community Centre, St Albans; The Shephall Centre, Stevenage; Hollywell Community Centre, Watford; Hilltop Community Centre, Hatfield.