On Monday Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that freedom day potentially won’t happen now until Monday 19th July. Four weeks later than originally planned.
Play Nightclub in Hereford is currently open for table service, but the last time they opened normally as a nightclub was Saturday 14th March 2020. Since then the previous owners of the club the Deltic Group went into administration and have sold Play alongside their other venues to a Danish company called Rekom.
The owners of Play told Your Herefordshire “Having been closed for almost 16 months, we are very disappointed by Monday’s decision. The late night sector, including clubs like ours, urgently needs additional financial support from the Treasury. Unlike other parts of hospitality, we have not been allowed to trade as normal. Despite the fact that we have no income coming in, we have rates to pay, furlough coming to an end and landlords that will want paying when the moratorium on rents ends later this month (30 June 2021).
If the Government doesn’t act now, we stand to lose more of our iconic late night venues that have been at the heart of local late night economies for years.
*Photos supplied by Cameron Mitchell-Hill Photography
