A plan to bring in an entry fee for the Worcester Show has now been scrapped and visitors will instead be asked to make a voluntary donation.

Cash-strapped Worcester City Council had been pushing ahead with introducing a £2 entry fee for the family-friendly and currently free Worcester Show as one way of helping with its worrying budget issues – a move it believed would cause “minimal” issues for visitors.

But when the money-saving move was put to a vote, councillors instead scrapped the move to introduce an entrance charge altogether in favour of a voluntary donation.

The family-friendly Worcester Show is held every August at the city’s Pitchcroft Racecourse and regularly attracts more than 10,000 visitors.

Last year’s event was run at a nearly £12,000 loss, with the city’s taxpayers underwriting the shortfall, and the council had looked to introduce a new fee that would, despite rising costs, double income and return a £9,000 surplus.

READ MORE: National Trust looking to change car parks at Croome Court

The city council was facing a £1.7m gap in its books this year – which it has already agreed will be filled by using reserves – and expects the gap to grow to nearly £4m in the next five years.

Council bosses warned they have reached the point where there will not be enough in the reserves to continue plugging gaps in the budget and looked to have turned to some of its popular - but nevertheless heavily-subsidised – events to try and save money.

READ MORE: Decision due on part of huge 2,600-home plan for edge of Worcester

Cllr Jabba Riaz said introducing a charge was an “extremely difficult” decision and one that would set a precedent for events in the rest of the city.

He said: “It’s only right that we keep it going but the only way we can keep it going at the level of expectation with the public, under the current economic circumstances with the cost of everything going up, it is only fair that we consider a small nominal charge so we can at least recover some of the costs and still put on a great show.”

Cllr Hannah Cooper said the show was a “jewel in the crown” for the city but introducing a charge this year was “short notice” – suggesting the council could plan ahead to bring in a fee for next year’s show – and Cllr Elena Round agreed the proposed new fee was “too short notice” and was worried it would create a lot of “bad will” among visitors and stallholders.

The council’s managing director David Blake said the £2 fee had been decided because the council wanted to bring in some money to make sure the festival was not being run at a loss but did not want to build a “real barrier” for people attending.

“This does not provide a profit because it still doesn’t cover all the costs,” he said at the meeting of the place and economic development committee in the Guildhall on Monday (June 5).

“If you think about several hundred hours of staff time and an average salary, it is not covered by nine-and-a-half thousand pounds income.”