Woods, who has never made a secret of the fact that he would like to see an empty square rather than a bustling market, has floated to the top of the Liberal-Democrat Party in recent years, and is now in a position to implement his plans.

Woods, who has probably taken too many continental holidays, would really like to see a completely empty Market Square, with a few coffee tables where hardworking Lib-Dems can take their ease after a heavy day in Cabinet.

Church has the interesting habit of talking about the Market Square without mentioning the market. He can do this for quite a long time if he isn’t stopped, and where he happens to be speaking doesn’t appear to make any difference.

He even went into a monologue about the Square when he was a guest at the Market Traders’ AGM in 2008, until a trader pointed out that he had not once mentioned the market. It was as if he had his unconscious mind on display;  there was no market in the Square, just the wonderful expanse of the empty Square itself. Even after being corrected he lapsed back into the habit, which does suggest that it is deeply engraved.

The Main Issues:

1) Downsizing the Market & ‘Demountable’ Stalls

With a council that says it is ‘improving’ the market, you would think that at least the same number of stalls were being kept, if not an increase in numbers. With the Lib-Dems however, this means cutting down the number of stalls. To such a degree that some traders who had four, five, or six stalls now after the planned move have had to take less stalls in order for there to be enough room for those traders who had their stalls taken away from them. This does not suggest any common sense has gone into the planned move; it suggests the Lib-Dems want their big greedy ‘events area’ at the expense of the market traders, and at any cost to the shoppers of Northampton.

Some aluminium ‘demountable’ stalls have been bought, and these will be put up as required to be used by those who are unlucky enough not to get the regular sturdy stalls. But many traders do not want these aluminium stalls, which tend to blow about in windy weather, get your stock wet in wet weather, and are notoriously liable to get damaged when being put up and taken down.

Recently a row of these aluminium ‘demountable’ stalls have been brought out on Fridays and Saturdays at Northampton Market, as an experiment. Regular traders have been asked to try them, but so far not many have volunteered. The side sheets are held in place with Velcro, which soon gets clogged up and no longer works properly. The wind can then rip it easily out of place, and the rain lashes in to ruin stock. The roofs are higher than traditional market stalls, and are of a shape that catches the wind easily. As Fitzy says they make good gazebos for a summer’s day, but are not stalls for bad weather.

When these kind of stalls were used on Northampton Market for a few days, at the time of the Underscan project, after less than two weeks of being put up and taken down every day only two out of ten stalls were still working properly.

The great majority of traders consider that it would be a retrograde step to introduce these flimsy aluminium stalls when we already have some of the most sturdy in the country.

At markets where these aluminium stalls are used, on windy days the market manager has to come out with a wind measure and if the wind is thought to be too strong the traders get sent home, but may still have to pay their rent for the day! Other markets have problems with this, click below:

http://www.journallive.co.uk/north-east-news/todays-news/2008/11/24/trouble-blowing-in-the-wind-at-blyth-market-61634-22323415/

The labour costs of constantly putting up and taking down these flimsy stalls every morning and night, (£250,000 p.a. for 147 stalls) and the consequential damage to them, appears to have been completely ignored by the Liberal-Democrat administration. The present steel stalls can be taken down quite easily once in a while to make space for weekend events, but have the great advantage that they can be left up overnight most of the time, and do not get damaged, thus saving both on labour and on replacement costs.

The Main Issues:

2) Moving every trader unnecessarily

The Lib-Dem council moved almost every market trader when the shape of the market changed according to their layout plan. This is because they used a ‘points system’ which was never designed for moving a large number of traders, but merely for filling empty stalls.

The problem with the ‘points system’ is that it is mainly based on points given for how many stalls a trader might have already, and on how many days a week. Not for being a regular trader for many years, as one might think.

So it it quite possible for a trader who has only been trading for a relatively short period of time with many stalls everyday, to have priority over a trader who has been on the market for many years with only one stall perhaps two days a week.

In practise this means the biggest traders with several stalls every day have chosen where they go first, then those with slightly less chose next, and so on down the scale. By the time the long-standing traders with only a few stalls a week got to make their choice, there was little choice left!

All the small traders with the interesting stuff that makes for variety and choice tend to be sidelined to poor positions which nobody else wants.

This means people who have earned a good position on the market by constant attendance over many years have had those positions taken away from them by these arrogant Liberal-Democrat plans. For many small traders this will mean the end of the road; things are bad enough already, and several traders have said they may be leaving within the next few weeks if trade does not improve. Unless there is a last-minute reprieve, like a period of low rent for the next few months while people gradually re-find their regular traders; some of these smaller traders will have to leave the market.

It need not be like this. Last time there was a move, when the first ‘events area’ was created, the then market committee put it to the council very strongly that it was in the interests of all concerned, and particularly of those traders who were being moved, that they should only move traders when it was absolutely necessary, and then move them to positions as close as possible to where they were before the move.

This was done, and preserved, so far as it was possible, the relative layout of the market, to the benefit of both traders and shoppers.

The present committee have also put across this point very strongly, and it was voted for by an overwhelming majority of traders at the last EGM. However, with the Liberal-Democrat administration this plea fell entirely on deaf ears, and it seems humanitarian values and common-sense count for nothing amongst these people.