A FISH and chip shop has this week been giving it out free meals to struggling families.

Lowford Fish Bar in Bursledon has been running the offer for children aged between 4 to 16 in full time education.

It has been offering out free meals such as sausage and chips or a fishcake and chips to try and help the local community through a difficult time.

The response to this offer was 'overwhelming' according to joint owner Karen Whitlock, who has run the shop for the past three years with her partner Rogerio.

She said: "We've always focussed quite a lot around the community.

"We can't do it this year because of covid, but we normally have a Halloween display outside the shop and Santa comes along for Christmas.

"We normally do an offer for the school holidays, but because it's mostly online service this year we weren't able to do that, so when half-term came around we decided to do this."

The offer is on just for the October half term and the couple hope that it will help local families

Karen added: "I didn't know a great deal about the government vote when we made the decision, but once we realised we knew we had to go ahead with it.

"I've been there myself, I know when my three were younger how much of a struggle it was.

"I feel like there's quite a lot of families struggling from what I've heard from the local community."

An online fundraising page has also been created for the shop to help cover the costs of the free meals.

Originally Karen set a target of £200 for the fundraiser, but after just 24 hours, they had already hit that goal so she moved it up to £400.

The shop has since hit that target and is now at £415 raised.

She said: "When it went up on our website that we were doing free meals for kids, we were bombarded with messages from customers giving their support.

"We were overwhelmed with how big it actually went and we are thinking if there is some left over that we will maybe do it again at Christmas."