A welfare centre serving nearly 40,000 members of the Armed Forces living in Ayrshire officially opened on Wednesday.

Poppyscotland's newest centre offers specialist support and advice in Kilmarnock.

The service helps those who have served or are still serving and their families.

After receiving funding from The MacRobert Trust and HM Treasury, the centre opened its doors to the public in October last year.

Deputy Commander of Operations Air Marshal Atha attended the official ceremony, only a few miles away from his hometown, with Poppyscotland chief executive Mark Bibbey on Wednesday.

Mr Bibbey told STV News: "The job of Poppyscotland is to provide life-changing welfare support to members of our Armed Forces community.

"There are 475,000 roughly members of our community.

"A significant proportion of them live within Ayrshire and we wanted to open an office that could serve that community."

Army veteran Alex Harvey has been using the facility for the past few months.

He said: "Poppyscotland in Kilmarnock have helped me greatly. Between them and my old regiment they have rewired my house, which was very dangerous and fixed my rising damp in my kitchen. Can't thank them enough."