PEWSEY'S army of Covid volunteers has pledged to keep on helping after lockdown ends.

At the height of the pandemic more than 600 vulnerable people from Pewsey and surrounding villages signed up for help from the Pewsey Coronavirus Community Assistance group (PCCA).

"We have had to adapt and change over the last few months," said organiser Phil Brady. "It has been an amazing community response.

The team has also been filling gaps left by social services.

"We don’t work with council or social services but have been supporting our community with most issues including mental and health care support and liaison, nutritional health and well-being," said Phil. "We have a number of professional and fully trained volunteers from a number of different areas of public service including health.

"We are certainly filling many gaps due to the fact many people have been unable to provide services due to shielding, but we have been and will be pioneering new services and will be working with existing groups in the area."

The PCCA will be reviewing its offer as the recovery stage of the pandemic rolls out, and is already working on a list of new, community-based activities. These include creative workshops bringing the elderly and young together, sessions on mending things, community gardening - building on the success of the BigDiggers growing vegetables for food boxes, tree planting, yoga, music, and even beer brewing at home.

The PCCA was set up in the first week of March operating from The Little Lunchbox cafe on the high street, with volunteers and businesses covering nine zones from Burbage to Upavon. It grew so quickly, they had to shift operations to Bouverie Hall. One of it's lasting legacies will be the Community Library which has seen volunteers catalogue books and upload CDs to the website. pcca.org.uk/library