Ridley Road Market 'under threat' from town hall plan to pass £500k cleaning bill on to traders

'Threat': Ridley Road Market
Flickr/seanbjack/Creative Commons licence CC BY-ND 2.0
Ramzy Alwakeel30 December 2015

Traders fear an iconic east London market could be under threat if town hall bosses get their way and force stallholders to foot a £500,000 annual bill for cleaning.

Ridley Road Market, which runs between Kingsland High Street and Dalston Lane in Hackney, is home to 125 food and clothes stalls.

Many of those may not be able to afford the proposed 20 per cent hike in their rent, according to traders’ association chairman Larry Julian, 62.

“It could be a big problem,” he told the Standard. “The council are adamant that they don’t want to subsidise us, but I feel they could be doing more.”

The proposal is part of Hackney Council’s vision of cutting off all the borough’s markets from town hall cash by April 2016 – a date Mr Julian says would give traders little time to budget for their new rent.

Hackney’s neighbourhoods boss Cllr Feryal Demirci said: “The council has already managed about £100 million in funding cuts from government and is now facing a further £60 million in cuts, and we cannot afford to continue subsidising our market traders, including shop front trading.

“We believe it is only fair to residents that operational costs of Hackney’s markets be covered by fees and charges so taxpayers’ money can be directed elsewhere.”

Mr Julian, who has worked on his family’s stall in Ridley Road for 45 years, said: “The impact will be long-term. Traders will be in a position where they won’t be able to afford to pay their rents to trade the way they trade.

“I can understand the council can’t subsidise everything and they do pick what they feel is most important.

“Our market is really diverse – it’s a multi-racial area and a fantastic place for individuals and groups to meet every day. I feel the council could have helped subsidise us slightly in respect of the market for the coming years.”

Originally the council proposed a 60 per cent rent hike but after negotiations agreed to a lower 20 per cent increase – just shy of £800 a year extra for every stall.

Many of the traders have never worked on their own pitch before, Mr Julian said, and are already struggling to make ends meet.

“Ridley Road is a great market because we give opportunities to people from all walks of life and all corners of the world,” he said.

“This is a bit of a worry because we encourage new people to trade in different sorts of commodities, and we feel if the rents are too high it will restrict new people from coming into the market.”

But he added: “I’m not here to knock Hackney Council – they’re trying to work alongside us.”

Cllr Demirci said the market could help keep down cleaning costs by separating waste properly.

The consultation runs for nine weeks.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in