High rents and “sham” consultations suggest otherwise
by
Julie Wassmer
An important meeting will take place next Wednesday 13th December from 5pm – 6.30pm at Tower House in Canterbury’s Westgate Gardens, at which the public can question council officers about plans to reinstate Canterbury Market. It’s important that we go along and do so.
Here’s why…
In January this year, Canterbury’s historic market was disbanded by the former Conservative-led Canterbury City Council (CCC). The rationale put forward was that the market’s location in St George’s Street needed new paving and some benches installed – at the astronomical cost of…wait for it… £1.2 million!
Prior to this, after talking to Canterbury Market traders and many local residents and market supporters who had opposed this policy, I had launched both a petition and a campaign to Save Canterbury Market which soon gathered many members from local residents’ associations and parish councils.
In spite of that campaign, and a 90-minute long meeting I had had with Ben Fitter-Harding last year, CCC remained intransigent—even after we had revealed at a public meeting in July that figures quoted in a consultation report authored by the council officer in charge of this policy, William (Bill) Hicks, had been shown as inaccurately low. A mitigating factor, unmentioned in Hicks’s report, was that the council had been failing to accept proper payment for market pitches since 2020 and had taken no pitch fees at all for the tax year beginning April 2022. CCC’s defence for this was that there had been an ongoing problem with the WorldPay card machines the council used – although, interestingly, CCC had also been refusing to accept cash payments from the traders…
The disbandment was voted through at a council meeting and a “calling-in” of that decision was later out-voted in August 2022. Directly after that last meeting in the Guildhall, I was filmed warning Ben Fitter-Harding that this policy would result in the loss of his council seat, as well as the Tories’ overall majority at the May council elections in 2023. As the Conservatives had dominated Canterbury City Council for 18 years, I’m sure Fitter-Harding wasn’t too perturbed – until my prediction came to pass. In May 2023, Ben Fitter-Harding duly lost his council seat, the Tories lost their majority and a coalition was then formed by Labour and the Lib Dems.
It is my belief, and that of many others, that a major contributing factor in that May election result was the hard work put in by members of the Save Canterbury Market Campaign to oust Tory councillors by voting tactically for Labour and Lib Dems.
Why did we do so?
Because both parties had made ELECTORAL PROMISES to reinstate Canterbury Market if they were elected.
Once a new Labour/Lib Dem coalition was formed at CCC, Councillor Alan Baldock (Labour council leader) and Councillor Michael Dixey (Leader of the Lib Dems) boldly announced to the press that the market would return, and importantly, (for the market traders and all who supported them), this would be done quickly. Alan Baldock told the Gazette newspaper: “It has always been Labour’s ‘ambition’ to restore the market to its previous location.” Michael Dixey said “It’s probably what we’d call an easy win because it’s not going to cost much money to bring it back…I think it can be done quite quickly, and it would be very popular.”
Both party leaders were indeed well aware that this would be a “very popular” move, having witnessed how much support there was for the Save Canterbury Market campaign. Baldock and Dixey had been present at a council meeting in the Guildhall when the market traders and I had made clear to councillors the important difference between a “market trader” and a “street trader” and how they operate under different licences and different terms and conditions therein. Michael Dixey had also attended our campaign’s public meeting at which the “bombshell disclosures” relating to Bill Hicks’ inaccurate figures for market income had been disclosed—together with the market traders’ brave admission that the council had been failing in their fiduciary duty to collect pitch rents. Alan Baldock heard the same at a council meeting for the calling-in of the Tory cabinet’s decision so he would have been fully aware of these important revelations concerning potentially misleading information within Bill Hicks’s “consultation report”.
This week I made a trip to Canterbury and sadly learned from traders that since the new coalition’s assumption of power, numerous obstacles have been put in the way of a swift and economical return of our city market.
To clarify:
- Street traders trade under a licence which has to be renewed annually but market traders operate under Terms and Conditions of their own licence and also have a National Federation to support them as well as their own Association and a Chairman to represent them locally.
- Last January, during the last Tory administration, market traders were forced to relinquish their market trader status and “transition” to become “street traders” – in order to continue any trading at all.
- Canterbury Market traders previously traded from “gazebos” which were considerably larger than the street trader stalls they have been forced to transition to since last January.
- The details of that “transitioning” were never fully disclosed or discussed properly with the market traders so the new siting of pitches was problematic and required intense discussion with former councillors.
- Under the current terms and conditions, all those trading as street traders are charged £28.75 per day and can trade on any days within a 7-day week.
- However, in a recent council budget meeting, it was decided to charge market traders £81.15 for ONE trading day a week – Wednesday.
Importantly, Canterbury Market’s previous market days had been twice-weekly — on Wednesdays and Fridays. But in discussion with council officer, Bill Hicks, and council leader, Alan Baldock, Fridays were surrendered by the traders when it was explained by CCC that this would be a good day for “events” to take place in St George’s Street.
Having surrendered that second market day, market traders stated that the following must be observed and accepted by Canterbury City Council:
- Canterbury Market has to return as a market – defined as “a cluster of stalls operated by market traders under the terms and conditions of a market trading licence — and not as a cluster of “street traders.”
- The pitch rent per market day should remain the same as for a street trader ie £28.75. (This in return for the relinquishing of Friday as a market day.)
- The market must return as a cluster of market trader stalls to its previous location of St George’s Street.
I am fully aware of how badly Canterbury Market traders were treated by the previous Tory administration at CCC, and by council officers like Bill Hicks, who failed to give due attention to important correspondence concerning the market traders at a time when traders were understandably concerned by the effects on their livelihoods. This was duly made public in the summer of 2022 within the following article citing a lack of attention and due consultation:
However, I never expected that once the new Labour/Lib Dem coalition took power, Canterbury Market traders would be treated with the same lack of respect. I was proved wrong when traders explained that they were only made aware of the proposed new market stall rents from a story in the local Gazette newspaper. See:
This echoes the way in which they had learned of the whole disbandment of the market with a front page story in the same paper in 2020:
Canterbury Market traders now find their future lies at the mercy of yet another consultation that CCC has decided to run – scheduled to take place over the Christmas holidays when many residents will be too busy with family commitments to properly take notice of this and duly comment.
I never once expected these obstacles to be thrown in the way of the return on our historic market from the likes of Labour and the Lib Dems — and neither did the market traders or their supporters – especially since they have had to suffer two previous CCC consultations — one of which contained the inaccurate figures for market income and was therefore considered a total “sham”.
At this point, the best I can possibly say of the new Labour and Lib Dem leaders of CCC is that perhaps they were totally naive in thinking they could actually reinstate Canterbury Market when it is actually the likes of council-employed officers, like Tricia Marshall (Head of Paid Service and Director of Corporate Services) and Bill Hicks, who has presided over this policy from the start, who actually run the council and come up with such policies while the elected councillors are simply puppets operating in some pathetic charade at local democracy?
Of one thing I am now sure, if elected councillors like Baldock and Dixey, and salaried council officers like Marshall and Hicks, are now proposing to price Canterbury market traders out of a return to market trading by increasing their pitch rents to a figure that makes no financial sense – they must think again.
Their recent “budget” proposals for the market were estimated at an astronomical £61,000, but cited the need for a Market Inspector with an annual salary of £45,000. How on earth can that be justified? Or is this simply part of a plan to continue with an unmanageable and unsustainable hike in market trader pitch rents, so that the traders are economically forced to maintain street trader pitches?
Next Wednesday 13th December, the “consultation” meeting is set to take place from 5pm – 6.30pm at Tower House in Canterbury’s Westgate Gardens. If you would like to see Canterbury Market return to its historic location, please come along and demand answers to all these crucial points from council officers. They will be there for that purpose but we will also be there—residents and traders alike—to prevent CCC trying to justify a third “consultation” which is already viewed by many not as a prelude to fulfilling a promise to reinstating Canterbury Market, but as another way of getting rid of it—for good. .
See you there!
Join the meeting next Wednesday and have your say in this consultation. See:
https://news.canterbury.gov.uk/news/public-consultation-meeting-on-canterbury-market-proposals/
ABOUT:
Julie Wassmer is a Whitstable-based author, TV writer and environmental campaigner.
She has successfully fought a number of environmental issues, including fracking in Kent and tree clearances by Network Rail. Her Whitstable Pearl crime novels are now a major TV series, starring Kerry Godliman.
Whitstable Views: How You Can Help
- Make sure you share and like our articles on Facebook and Twitter, and whatever other social-media platforms you use.
- Follow the site to get regular updates about new articles when they appear. Press the “Follow” icon in the bottom right hand corner of your screen and that will take you to the option to sign up. (It disappears as you move the text down, then reappears as you move it back up again!)
- Leave comments on the site rather than on Facebook. Let’s get a debate going. All of our contributors are willing to engage with you if you leave a comment.
- To all writers out there, we would LOVE you to make a contribution. Read our submissions page for details on how to go about that: https://whitstableviews.com/submissions/
- Finally you can donate. As little as £1 would help. Details on the donations page here: https://whitstableviews.com/donate/
Whitstable Views 