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SHOPPERS are rushing to cheap supermarket with items costing half as much as Aldi - after paying £3.50 for a "lifetime membership".

The Coastal Community Supermarket has opened a bargain pop-up store in Holt, north Norfolk.

Pensioner Martin Batey shops at the bargain supermarket every week
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Pensioner Martin Batey shops at the bargain supermarket every weekCredit: CHRIS RADBURN/TIMES MEDIA LTD

Many people in Holt struggle to afford essentials - and the shop wants to help them.

It opens twice a week, and stocks goods for about half what they might cost at a discount supermarket like Aldi.

To sign up, locals have to pay just £3.50 for a lifetime membership.

Retired postman Martin Batey, 63, has been doing his weekly shop at the supermarket since it opened last July.

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He told The Times: "With the cost of living having gone up the way it has, that’s affected me and everybody else.

"This gives the opportunity for people who just don’t have a lot of money to be able to eat decent food, rather than noodles and junk."

Single mum-of-two Laura Bell, 38, said: "Not having my partner's income now, shopping here is a lot better."

The supermarket used to be a food bank, but has been transformed by the Feeding Britain charity - which runs 350 other "food clubs" across the UK.

Boss Simon Laurinaitis-Prince also runs a pop-up supermarket out of a revamped Tesco van in a different town or village every day.

Simon said: "Behind the shiny facade of old seaside towns are people that are struggling."

It comes as two major towns are losing an M&S service loved by shoppers - leaving them devastated.

Feeding Britain works to prevent and eliminate hunger and destitution in the UK and is one of three charities supported by the Times and Sunday Times Christmas appeal this year.  

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