A bid to build a warm room at a Gosport food bank site has been green-lit by planning chiefs.

Stuart Pottinger, of the Jacobs Well Care Centre in Toronto Place, has been granted permission to demolish a dilapidated storage unit on his site and replace it with a warm room.

The Christian faith charity works to relieve poverty around Gosport.

“The Jacobs Well Care Centre is a charity established in 1992 that exists to advance the Christian faith and help relieve poverty in Hampshire, as well as the rest of the world,” said agent George Henshaw’s covering letter.

The site has a food bank that provides food for 600 families, as well as a storage facility, a low-cost second-hand furniture facility, a free school uniform project and a bric-a-brac shop. 

The derelict building is “beyond its useful life” and Mr Pottinger wanted to turn it into a warm room to be used by the local community, said Mr Henshaw.

The new 2,488-square-metre replacement structure will be 10 metres by 8.2 metres by 3.4 metres at its tallest point – increasing in size by 51 square metres from 22 to 73 square metres in floor space.

The new building will be clad in profiled steel and powder-coated in merlin grey to fit in with the rest of the industrial style surroundings at the centre.