A COUPLE of years ago, our imagination was fired by a scheme proposed in Worcester to try and deal with the problem of beggars and begging.

It was impressively simple. Rather than exposing people to intimidating hands held out for cash from shop doorways, the idea was to ask for donations to a series of "poor" boxes - for want of a better phrase - then distribute the proceeds among the needy as appropriate.

Just how good an idea it was has been underlined by the Lyttelton Well charity, in Malvern.

The town has a widespread reputation as a place of serene prosperity.

But scratch beneath the surface, as most people there know, and the reality is very different.

So hats off to the charity, and to the three fast-food bars in the town who've agreed to take part in a scheme which turns public donations into vouchers which the homeless can use to "buy" food.

Project co-ordinator Andy Lyle would like to see the Malvern scheme expanded after it's reviewed later this year. It strikes us that every community could organise an equivalent, if it wanted to.

Worcester's Make It Count scheme - run by the City Centre Forum, backed by the city council, West Mercia police and CrownGate Shopping Centre, and administered through St Paul's Hostel and the Maggs Day Centre - has gone quiet in past months. By coincidence, however, it's close to being relaunched. When it is, we hope you'll feel disposed to making a donation.

It's far better than asking members of the public to risk their hard-earned cash being fed into the till at a pub or off-licence, or lining a drug-dealer's pockets.

It's also certainly far better - unless you're among those who misguidedly regard every homeless person as the architect of their own downfall - than expecting them to scavenge or starve.