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Anti Loo Roll Brigade still going years after Covid

Shaun Peel & Alice Cunningham
BBC News, Essex
Martin Giles/BBC Peter Dutch smiles at the camera. He has very short, thin hair and wears a grey jumper with a black top underneath.Martin Giles/BBC
Peter Dutch set up the Colchester Anti Loo Roll Brigade after seeing people stockpiling toilet roll during the pandemic

A man who set up a community group on social media during the coronavirus pandemic said he never expected to still be helping people five years on.

Peter Dutch created the Colchester Anti Loo Roll Brigade Facebook group after seeing videos of people stockpiling toilet roll which frustrated him back in 2020.

The group, with 26,700 members, celebrated its fifth birthday on Saturday and has gone on to open its own community centre in Stanway.

Mr Dutch, a former scaffolder, said he felt "privileged" the community had trusted him to help.

"When I set it up there was no end game, there was no long term plan, it was purely a knee jerk reaction just to try and help the situation that was in front of us," he explained of the group's origins.

Peter Dutch A group of NHS workers wearing scrubs smile at the camera. Some are giving thumbs up signs.Peter Dutch
The Anti Loo Roll Brigade helped deliver food and personal protective equipment (PPE) to NHS workers during the pandemic

During the first lockdown in March 2020, many supermarket shelves were left bare of toilet rolls because of panic buying, which Mr Dutch said left him feeling angry.

"The silly name and the passion struck a nerve with the community and the Colchester community stepped up," he continued.

"Within a couple of weeks we had several thousand members, we built up this huge support network.

"We had prescriptions runs going, we had home education services going, we were providing pick-up trucks for the first responders in the community, we supplied all the PPE to the local care homes.

"We just threw ourselves into it and off the back of the goodness of the community we managed to solve an awful lot of problems for people."

Peter Dutch A large crowd of people standing in front of the stage in Lower Castle Park. The sky is blue and in the background are trees.Peter Dutch
The Anti Loo Roll Brigade hosts an annual festival in Castle Park

As Covid began to ease, Mr Dutch said he felt it "would be a crime not to use [the group] to its maximum benefit" and he went on to form a community interest company in its name.

The group continues to help people and also took over the lease of a purpose-built community centre just off the Stanway Western Bypass.

Mr Dutch planned to launch an allotment and community garden at the centre and the group was also working with the council, schools and police to tackle other issues.

"It's been such a blur and we've gone from one project to another... we never really get that much time to reflect," Mr Dutch added.

"Sometimes when you sit down and talk about the story and everything we've achieved, you do get brief moments where you think, 'wow, what a busy five years we've had'."

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