The former Riverside Social Centre in Treforest has been transformed into a new base for Pontypridd Foodbank, with Rhondda Cynon Taf Council joining the charity to showcase the refurbishment at the end of 2025.

The upgrade was delivered via a Community Asset Transfer, supported by the Council’s RCT Together Community Development Team.

Previously a day centre for Adult Services, the building was badly damaged by Storm Dennis in 2020. With demand outstripping storage in local churches, the foodbank – then part of the Church in Wales Pontypridd Ministry Area Council – operated temporarily from the Council’s Ilan Centre in Rhydyfelin while a permanent solution was sought.

Working with officers across Leisure, Corporate Estates and RCT Together, the foodbank took on a temporary ‘Tenancy at Will’ at Riverside in October 2021, backed by Deputy Leader Councillor Maureen Webber BEM, ensuring essential services could continue.

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An Expression of Interest for a Community Asset Transfer via lease followed in June 2022. By July 2023, Pontypridd Foodbank had become an independent registered charity and, after its business case was approved, it signed a 25-year lease in November 2024. The agreement included a six-month rent-free period to carry out repairs and energy-efficiency improvements. The foodbank is part of the UK-wide Trussell network.

More than £250,000 has been secured to remodel and refurbish the centre. Works included installing PV solar panels, repairing the roof, reconfiguring internal space, decommissioning the gas supply, and replacing gas central heating with timed electric heaters.

The completion caps a 13-year journey that began at St Luke’s Church in Rhydyfelin in 2012. In its first full year, the foodbank issued 1,255 parcels; in 2025, it provided 5,318. The renewed site now hosts a full-time Foodbank Manager, two part-time staff and around 70 volunteers, and the organisation is an active partner of the RCT Sustainable Food Partnership. Clients can access food support, one-to-one advice and signposting to services including Interlink’s Wellbeing Coordinators, Citizens Advice and Welsh Water.

The project has been enabled by collaboration with Rhondda Cynon Taf Council, Pontypridd Town Council, Citizens Advice, Interlink, local supermarkets and funders including Trussell, the Welsh Church Act Fund, the UK Government’s Shared Prosperity Fund and the National Lottery.

On behalf of Pontypridd Foodbank, Liz Pearce and Manday Haydon-Hall, said: "We want to thank the RCT Together team and our funders for helping us to bring life back into an unused community building. The works we have had carried out means that we are now able to offer a much more welcoming environment to those in our community who find themselves in need of support."