Hope amongst difficulty at a food bank this Christmas.

'We haven't seen anything like this since Harvest Festival, ' I'm standing in the food bank distribution centre in Blurton a down at feel neighbourhood in my home town of Stoke-on-Trent.

It is a few days before Christmas and I am with one of the small army of volunteers who run the centre watching a seemingly endless stream of donations arrive. Almost every inch of space is crammed with bags and boxes of food, the whole thing looks like total confusion fuelled by coffee and good will.

The centre is located in a former Methodist church on the sort of estate that film makers and journalists who arrive in town with preconceived opinions to confirm are drawn to magnetically. All the better to portray urban decay and, of the mood takes them, stroke their beards whilst musing about how people have abandoned the community the church used to represent in favour of football on a big screen TV at the pub down the road.

The reality is, as always, more complicated and rather more hopeful.

The problems the city faces are undeniably large, over the past forty years Stoke-on-Trent has seen the industries that put it on the map collapse on after another. First to go was the steelworks, closed in the late seventies, the eighties and nineties saw the coal mines shut one after another; last to go was the pottery industry done to death by cheap imports.

Call centres and warehousing provided a lifeline for many people, despite this whole communities were left without jobs or purpose. This is reflected in the rise of food bank use in the city, in 2916/17 10,330 three-day parcels were provided to struggling families.

Across the UK according to the Trussell Trust, the charity which runs 428 food banks across the country, December 2017 was their busiest month ever, showing a 49% rise in the number of users. The charity provided 159,388 three-day parcels, 65,622 of which went to children and need is expected to continue rising.

Data from Oxfam and Church Action on Poverty shows that half a million people in the UK are reliant on food parcels, one in six parents regularly go hungry to feed their children and more than a quarter of the people the charities interviewed were one unexpected bill away from hardship.

According to the Office for National Statistics the UK has the thirteenth highest poverty rate in Europe with 7.3% of the population (4.6 million people) are living in poverty with 35% reporting high levels of anxiety and ill health as a result.

The Trussell Trust cite cold weather, high living costs and benefit sanctions as driving people to use food banks. shortly after my visit to the Blurton centre a spokesperson for the local branch told the media he feared that usage would rise further with the roll out of Universal Credit.

Emma Revie, chief executive of the Trussell Trust said in a press statement earlier this year that the benefits system was ' supposed to protect us all from being swept into poverty, but what we are seeing is people struggling to heat homes and put food on the table because they simply cannot afford the basics'.

She added that the charity was 'urging' the government to ' ensure benefit payments reflect the cost of living to help ensure we are all anchored from poverty'.

Statistics tell only part of the story, the part that has little hope of an easy solution. There is another story that is more hopeful, if the solution is still achingly distant.

It is the one where people from all works of live come together to help other. On the day I volunteered there were people helping out from a major bank, one of the local evangelical churches and a logistics company.

There are, of course, food banks and similar charities run by other faiths and there is no hint of seeking to 'convert' anyone who volunteers for or uses a food bank; but faith is very much in the room. This is a surprise in a Britain that often gives a convincing impression of having abandoned such communitarian values in favour of endless shopping.

This perhaps holds the answer to reversing four decades of growing poverty and inequality and the political thinking that brought us to this place. People want to help others, through physically doing so or, maybe not getting a tax sweetener in every budget.

Maybe those thoughts are prompted more by a flash of the Christmas spirit that practical political understanding. Then again, the endless stream of donations flooding through the doors of the Blurton centre were real, so is the generosity they represent.

At a time when we give in too often to excess another, older and more powerful one is getting through too.

Public transport is the missing piece in the regeneration puzzle.

First Potteries, a bus company with an approach to PR that leaves almost everything to be desired, have announced that ticket prices are to rise.

Fares are set to go up by between 10p and £1 on 9th December, passengers using the mTickets phone app will not be affected. The fare paid by holders of concessionary passes using the bus before 9:30 will also rise from £1.60 to £2.00.

Speaking to the Sentinel Sarah East, director of operations for First said that although some dates have been ' revised' the day ticket offered by the company was still value for money and that there were improved discounts for travellers under 16.

She was at pains to extol the virtues of the ticket app, saying that it is ' easy to download, fill in a few details and away you go'.

Adding that buying tickets in this way ' makes using the bus not only cost effective, but also more convenient and helps quicken up journey tines'.

There is a case for saying that whatever end of the stick bus passengers are given it tends to turn out to be the dirty one. Every so often, just to break the monotony, it gets used to cash them over the head too.

If you look past the bright talk about apps and promises of a discount here and an allowance, there this looks like another instance of an all too familiar story.

Public transport in this city has been stuck in a time warp for decades, with often third hand buses rattling around the six towns following routes that get cut in an annual sacrifice to the cruel god of efficiency.

It doesn't have to be like this; if we want regeneration to be a reality instead of a pipe dream something has got to change.

Since 2015 the City Independent led coalition has talked a good game about changing the city's image and with it our fortunes too. Bidding to be the UK City of Culture or home and the new home of Channel 4 have, though both were unsuccessful, paid a dividend in positive PR.

That Stoke-on-Trent hasn't got an integrated public transport system as the twenty first century trundles into its second decade is the missing piece in the regeneration puzzle.

Other cities, Nottingham for example, manage the trick of getting busses and trains to link up and have revived team systems that vanished years ago. Why can't we do the same?

Part of the problem is a lack of leadership, Labour took the city's voters for granted for too long, meaning they had no incentive to do anything other than what they'd always done. Since 2015 the City Independents have consistently put the cart before the horse, getting distracted by projects like building luxury hotels and apartments for young professionals that won't work without a decent transport network bring in place first.

Nationally things have been no better, public transport hazardous never had a minister with the vision and strength of character necessary to drive through modernisation. The current incumbent, Chris Grayling, is a politician so shockingly inept it is a wonder his antics aren't accompanied by a laughter track.

North Staffs Green Party has consistently spoken about the need to build an interconnected transport system for Stoke-on-Trent. We have worked with partners including the Pensioners Convention to put forward a workable plan for building one

Recently other parties have expressed similar aspirations, there is truly more rejoicing over one MP who repents than a dozen candidates who believed all along, so we welcome their joining the fight. This is an issue too important to be bound up in partisan infighting.

The difference is we will continue talking about how we need trains, busses and trams that work together; safer cycling routes and more opportunities to walk instead of drive long after the political agenda has moved on.

We know that it is more important to do what is right and necessary than what gets you a headline in tomorrow's papers. That is why we will stick with the fight to improve local transport infrastructure until Stoke has the quality network it deserves.