BMTRA

The Saturday market has become a phenomenal success. We now need to put the organisation on a firmer footing. This costs money. We also need to repair and replace many of the stalls:  the extreme weather has made this an urgent necessity, we can expect more of the same next winter. And we need a little extra to kickstart our plastic bag-free campaign - it will soon be self-financing.

All this and more means we need to raise the stall rent from £20 to £25 a week. More than half the extra £5 will pay for our new part-time administrator James Ó Nuanáin. His title is Market Manager and he also acts as unpaid Secretary of BMTRA. The accounts occupy much of his time. Among many other things he also deputises for Louise Brewood, our Market Director.

A summary of our accounts is being published on this blog: we are keeping our collective head above water, but with little leeway, and we need to develop the market and its role in the community. We are setting up a new social enterprise, a community interest company with its assets tied to BMTRA. This too costs money, but it means we will be able to apply for development funding not available to a community group.

When we put this to traders back in February, their first response was that we should use the increase to encourage regular traders and to discourage no-shows. Traders hate empty stalls, so do customers, so do we. The biggest problem is people who phone on Friday night to say they won’t be here in the morning - or just fail to turn up on the day. This costs us money, because we pay for the stalls to be erected, whether traders turn up or not.

The solution, suggested by traders, was that we charge £25 for those willing to pay a month in advance with a two-week notice period for no-shows and refunds to cover emergencies. Those wishing to pay on the day would be charged £30. This was our initial proposal.

It was interpreted by some as a 50% rise. That is not the intention. A £5 increase and a full market is clearly in everyone’s best interests. Some of the smaller stallholders who do turn out every week have told us they cannot afford to pay four weeks in advance.

So this is Plan B: we propose to raise the rent to £25, cash on the day, from May 3. Over the following few weeks we will ask traders to move towards paying one week in advance. People who fail to tell us one week in advance that they will not be turning out will forfeit their week’s payment - again with a refund to cover emergencies. We hope this will be enough to discourage no-shows.

We would still urge traders to pay in advance by standing order if they possibly can: cash is dangerous, our collectors have already been robbed at knifepoint.

Andrew Veitch,
Chair, BMTRA.

Anyone seeing the Hackney Council notice about increases in street trading charges on April 14 (Hackney Today) could be forgiven for thinking the council has decided to charge Broadway Market traders a hefty £30.75 every Saturday—a rise of more than 300 percent, and starting on 19 May.That is indeed what the notice says. The notice is wrong. We have asked the council withdraw it.

Senior officers confirm that Hackney is obliged to consult for 28 days on plans to raise charges. It must then decide what to do, publish its proposals, and wait another 28 days before implementing them. So 19 May merely marks the end of the consultation period.

Alan Laing, the councillor in charge of Neighbourhoods (which includes markets) told Ridley Road traders in February that the council would “endeavour” to allow six weeks consultation before raising charges: it would appear this endeavour has failed.

Bmtra’s initial response has already gone in—more objections will follow on the massive proposed increases in shop front trading charges for pubs and cafes.

But the key point is the rise from the present £9 to £30.75 a day. It applies only to casual traders, only on Broadway and only on Saturdays—permanent traders (all two of them) will be charged £9.20. Since most of the Saturday traders have applied for permanent licences and been refused, this is clearly indefensible.

There is a weasel clause: the council wants to introduce a concessionary rate of £9.20 for Broadway casuals (a rise of only 20p). We have been told that the council intends to apply this concessionary rate to all casuals. However we have also been told that the council will withdraw this any time it wants—in other words without notice and without consultation.

We think this is dangerous—and it looks like a blatant attempt at avoiding consultation. It is unacceptable.

We have also asked the Council to explain the Market Department’s extraordinary costs: refuse collection cost £80,000 for Broadway Market in 2006/7—£30,000 more than the previous year. And it seems to cost them £8.50 to collect a licence fee of £9. We have offered to collect the fee on their behalf, at a fraction of the cost.

Andrew Veitch, Chair, Bmtra.