A couple who run a pizza delivery company from their home are offering an evening of free food to families struggling with the cost of living.

Darren and Nicola Smith, 51 and 49, based at their home in Cliffe Woods, make artisan wood-fired pizza through their company MyPizzaEvent.

However, they have decided that tomorrow, they will not be accepting orders and will instead offer free pizza to families "that have suffered as a consequence of this appalling cost of living crisis".

Darren said: "We've run our pizza business for seven years and we've got an established events company but we've been affected by the cost of living crisis.

"We came up with the idea to deliver pizzas locally from our home, and we launched this in our village four weeks ago. Since then we've been really supported by the local community.

"My wife and I felt guilty that we would always put out these posts advertising our pizzas, and not just us but many businesses are advertising their products.

"So many families are seeing these and they aren't getting takeaways, they can't afford it at this moment in time. It's tough enough.

"We thought since the local community have really supported us, we should give something back."

The pair will honour any pizzas pre-ordered for the day, but will be offering 60 free pizzas to those in need, with a choice of margherita, pepperoni, and meat feast, as well as the option for gluten free bases.

Each pizza will also include a complimentary pot of homemade gelato.

The pair are limiting the offer to three pizzas per family, and the offer is open to residents of Cliffe and Cliffe Woods.

Darren said the response has been "phenomenal", and the pair are already at around 75% capacity.

He added: "This is not a one-off. We'd like to do this once in a while, maybe three or four times year. We just don't know what the future is.

"I want to tell other businesses we can all do this, we can all pull our weight.

"Sure, there is a cost to us, with time, ingredients, and delivery, but it's a great community project."

In a Facebook post announcing the event, Darren said: "We can't do this fairly unfortunately in the sense that we are limited on our doughs and delivery service.

"We also understand that it will be difficult to determine who qualifies but we will do our very best."