The Royal British Legion (RBL) Welfare Team is encouraging serving and veteran soldiers to attend drop-in sessions in Warminster where they can be given financial, social and emotional support.

The sessions, which are held fortnightly on a Monday at Warminster Community Centre, on Firbank Crescent, between 10am-1pm, have been running since the end of January.

At the sessions soldiers and their families are offered support on a number of issues from debt, war pensions, compensation and general advice.

However, the RBL Welfare Team for Wiltshire and Somerset is keen to raise awareness of the sessions and encourage more people to use them.

Alistair Maxwell, area manager for Wiltshire and Somerset, said: “We set up the drop-in centre as Warminster has a very large military population and has lots of ex-service people who we want to reach out to and who need ourselves.

“It’s early days but it has been positive however, it is about getting established so people are aware and it’s very important that people are given the opportunity to connect with us.”

As well as the outreach sessions which are based in communities to make them accessible, there is also the RBL’s contact centre where people can phone or the recently opened Pop-In Centre in Swindon where people can talk and receive support.

Gemma Carter, advice and information officer in Wiltshire for the RBL, said: “We’ve been running the sessions in Warminster since January but it has been quite quiet and we are just trying to get the word out about the sessions and raise the profile in the local area.

“I would tell people who are interested just to come and find out what we do as we want to be more accessible in the community.”

Roger Kingshott, chairman of the RBL in Warminster, said: “These drop-in sessions are good because the soldiers like to deal with army personnel, it’s a good idea.”