Digbeth Dining Club scraps £2 entrance fee in response to cost-of-living crisis

The £2 fee which gets visitors into Hockley Social Club and Herberts Yard, Longbridge, to buy from various street food vendors will no longer be charged.

Jack Brabant, one of the co-founders of Digbeth Dining Club, said: "We know £2 isn’t much but it’s always covered our ever increasing costs but we feel that we can remove the entrance free and pass the saving on to our loyal customers who then in turn also help out the traders that are there by supporting them too and making sure they come to the events that we have on.

"Yes we might have to find that money from our own pockets but we have been supported by our loyal customers for so long it’s one of the small things we can do to give back. We would much prefer people to come here and support our traders and make sure that these independent businesses can survive, especially coming up to winter when the larger events are tailing off because of the weather."

The Digbeth Dining Club is celebrating its tenth year trading and Mr Brabant believes even £2 can make a difference to those struggling to cope with inflation.

He said: “We have helped hundreds of traders from all over the region establish themselves and show what they can do and we feel that the more that we can have in over the next few months, the chance is that more of these businesses will survive. it’s really hard out there at the moment with pressures coming from every angle, we just want to do what we can for both our customers and our traders, to help the local community and to make sure that we can all get through this together."