A food bank in St Albans faces closure if a new premises is not found.

The St Albans and District Foodbank is urgently looking for a new unit for their storage function, after being told they have to leave their current premises at Rothamsted Research in Harpenden by the end of December.

Manager Emma Dalton said: "The food bank will not be able to operate if it cannot find new warehouse premises and could face closure in December without suitable storage space.

"The service is vital for the community and we desperately want to keep it going.

"We need a space to store food and for admin. We will keep working until we get it.

"At the moment we have two and a half metric tons of food, so cannot operate out of homes unfortunately. We need a new space urgently."

This year, the food bank has been feeding between 50 and 70 people a week, and since April 1 they have fed 700 people.

The food bank is looking for between 600-1,000 sq.ft of space and are appealing to anyone who can provide free storage space.

The space would be used by volunteers for the storage and sorting of all donated goods.

Mrs Dalton said the food bank would be vital in coming months as changes to benefits are taking place. She added: "We appeal for anyone who could help to come forward and keep this vital service running."

The foodbank was set up in association with the Trussell Trust in May 2014 and most recipients have been low-income, working families who encounter a crisis, people who have been made redundant or those experiencing delays in benefits payments.

Food is donated by local churches, schools, supermarkets, organisations and individuals.

More than 100 volunteers work across the storage centre at Rothamstead Research and three distribution centres at Batford, Wheathampstead and Cell Barnes Lane and sort, date, store and pack the food ready for collection.

Each food pack is intended to provide one person with three meals a day for three days, and they are nutritionally balanced containing only non-perishable food.

Maggie Thurman, trustee and volunteer with the charity said: "We are extremely grateful to Rothamsted for supporting us with free-of-charge floorspace over the last 18 months and enabling the Foodbank to become established with four foodbank distribution centres across the district."

For more information, contact manager@stalbansdistrict.foodbank.org.uk or call 01727 613019 and select Option 1.