A “WARM BANK” is to be opened on a council estate in Kent for young children whose parents cannot afford to heat their homes this winter.

The site will be funded by a Labour councillor after Tory-run Kent County Council failed to draw up plans to help residents worst-hit by soaring energy bills and the cost-of-living crisis.

The warm bank is the first of what is likely to be dozens in Kent — and thousands across Britain — as winter approaches.

Cllr Barry Lewis is using cash from a £10,000 grant that each councillor receives to spend on projects in the areas they represent.

The warm bank will open in a community building already housing Sure Start and other family facilities on the 3,000-home Millmead estate in Margate.

Cllr Lewis told the Morning Star: “It’s aimed at preschool children because they are medically more at risk than adults and schoolchildren get heating at school.”

He said the Tory-controlled council had debated the cost-of-living crisis but had “not come up with any plans.”

“I’m never amazed at the indifference to poverty that Tories in general show towards people who are less fortunate than themselves,” he said.

“Many of them blame the victims.

“The council has no specific policies on the cost-of-living crisis. They just wring their hands and say: ‘It’s because of the war in Ukraine’ — that sort of thing.”

Cllr Lewis and the county council’s six other Labour members are pressing for libraries and other public buildings to be used as warm banks for those who can no longer afford to heat their homes.