Councillors To Discuss Market Options: Investment, Outsource Management or Sell
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Posts
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Should be interesting. I wonder how the Market component of the Peoples Market will fit in with the other 2 Markets if the Hub itself is “gifted” to a trust. Will the trust determine the direction that this component takes, will it be autonomous or will its future track the other markets. Given the fact that the Peoples Market has been the biggest Market, can the other 2 be viable as Markets; after all, staff costs have been spread across 3 Markets in the past.
Most significantly, how can the Markets be reconfigured and modernized to keep pace with other Market linked towns (like Bury and Altrincham) now that they are to be topped and tailed.
It is quite astonishing that Scrutiny meeting this week seem to be able to determine the use of the Peoples Market when the Council have declared that the Arts Hub will be handed to a Trust to run. Any new management -whatever structure will clearly need to maximise income any interference by the Council in determining use will be detrimental and only go towards making this whole project a failure.
When Councillor Hugh Jones the Lead Member brought the Arts Hub/Peoples Market before the Executive Board in January 2015, he quoted that there would be a loss of 14 stalls to the new development. At that time the Peoples Market was quoted by the Council as having 58 stalls. We are now losing 38 stalls instead of the original 14. How can we believe anything else the Council tell us when the figures are as distorted as those given.
I have sympathy with traders in the Butchers and General Markets in having to choose the options they were given. The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t know. Unfortunately, the devil you know is completely incapable of running the markets.I wrote my first post before the reported meeting. Some interesting positions being taken. Councillor Rogers, for examnple, reported back that the stalls in the projected Arts Hub will not necessarily be Arts linked. Whilst I can see the element of appeasing existing traders, this will mean that the brand identity of the Arts Hub will not be as strong as a reconfiguration of the Markets could have allowed. What comparable towns across the US have done, for example, is reconfigure Markets so that one space is Arts/Crafts, another food, another general merchandise and so on. Given that we have 3 spaces, we could have done this without imposing a Hub concept upon a viable Market
Good observation Jim. There is a real element of Hobson’s choice fused with El Dorado about the Market trader inclination towards retaining the Council as a landlord. Exploration of a NMTF route forward and some sort of Cooperative entity has been tossed around in the past. Unfortunately, trader division and lack of confidence/funding thwarted that. The thought of a 3rd party seems to scare the traders (understandably). Whilst WCBC has not been the “good” landlord quoted in Wrexham.Com’s report, it has always had the potential to be so…and did show huge signs under Amanda’s recent management of positivity. Whatever now occurs, I hope that all concerned get a grip on things
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