MALDON district's Salvation Army has joined forces with a local radio station to launch a new partnership in the High Street.

Chelmer Radio now has its own space at the town centre's Salvation Army charity shop. The shop will now provide a place where people can actively engage with the radio station, as well as the friendly and helpful shop staff.

Launching the new initiative today (Thursday, 22 October), shop manager Kevin Dawson Jennings, said: "We're not just a shop, we are a place for the community.

"Anything that can extend that care partnership helps.

"There are a lot of elderly and vulnerable people in our community that we reach out to."

Chelmer Radio director David Baker said: "For us to be involved with the Salvation Army is great. It's an amazing charity.

"We feel we'll be working with the kind of people and ordinary families who will like what we do and our kind of music."

And John Doyle, who has been minister at the Maldon district Corps along with his wife, Caron, for the past 18 months, said: "The shop and Kevin provide a link for us into the community and we all work together.

"We provided 65,000 meals to people who needed them across the district in lockdown and Kevin was one of our volunteers.

"Standing together we're going to be in a better place than trying to get through things alone."