Why the “return” of Canterbury market is nothing but a sham
by
Last week, on Wednesday 17 July, local newspapers ran with news that the Labour/Lib Dem council coalition, led by Councillor Alan Baldock, had restored Canterbury’s historic market to its traditional site in St George’s Street.
In fact, this was a gross misrepresentation of what had taken place because not a single general market trader had returned to St George’s Street having been priced out of doing so – by the council.
Canterbury’s 700-year old market had always traded as a “general market” and had taken place twice weekly on Wednesdays and Fridays until its “disbandment” in January 2023 by the former Conservative-led council. Importantly, it had also comprised of “market traders” working from large (6 metre by 3 metre) gazebo stalls, under specific market trader licences and with the protection of an official body known as the National Market Traders Federation (NMTF).
Importantly, market traders have always been distinct from “street traders” as the latter generally operate on smaller designated pitches and under a licence which has to be renewed annually.
The previous Conservative-led council, led by Ben Fitter-Harding, had announced plans to disband the general market with the excuse of “de-cluttering” and renovating St George’s Street. Shockingly, the first the market traders were to know of this was on sight of a front page story in the Canterbury Gazette newspaper on 20 February 2020.
At £630,000, the cost of the redevelopment seemed astonishingly high but rose to over £1.2 million – for what? Replacing paving, destroying five mature trees in St George’s Street and installing some new benches. There was talk of “events” taking place in St George’s Street once the work was completed, though it was never made fully clear at that time what these “events” would be.
The policy was always an unpopular move because the general market was both much-loved and well-used not only by residents on low budgets but by visitors to the city. Due to good parking it had also become a favourite of disabled customers and many elderly residents who trusted the traders, some of whom had been working in St George’s Street for almost three decades.
Opposition parties began to oppose the council’s plans and the Green Party duly organised a protest in December 2021 highlighting the threat to local trees. Labour’s Mel Dawkins – a “twin hatter” councillor who sits on both Canterbury City Council and Kent County Council (KCC), worked to oppose the uprooting of the trees which eventually remained in place.
As an environmental campaigner, I was invited by the Greens to speak at the tree protest and I subsequently began the campaign group, Save Canterbury Market, after learning more about the impending disbandment of the market from the traders themselves, including their chairman, Steve Bamber.
I also learned that a consultation about the Conservative council’s plans had gained thousands of responses from local residents opposing the market’s closure – as did a paper and online petition, until the whole consultation had been halted with the councillor in charge of this policy, the late Barbara Flack, claiming the reason for this suspension was that life had “changed” following the Covid crisis.
Life certainly had changed because, for health reasons, more people than ever were choosing to buy goods and groceries at the market rather than inside local shops or stores. The council, however, had no plans to shelve the disbandment of the market – only their first public consultation – with all the responses therein duly discarded.
A second consultation then went ahead with the results interpreted in a report authored by the salaried council officer William (Bill) Hicks, who, as Deputy Director, Place, was in charge of the council’s plans for the market’s disbandment. Hicks’s report went before councillors for their guidance at a meeting on Thursday 28 July 2022. Following due consideration of his report, Conservative Cabinet councillors then voted the policy through.
That same council meeting happened to be scheduled for the night before a public meeting I had organised to take place on Friday July 29. Many people attended that meeting including parish councillors, members of residents associations and the Labour councillor, Mel Dawkins, and Lib Dem leader, Michael Dixey. I had invited Dr Ian Jasper, a senior lecturer at Canterbury Christ Church University, to chair the meeting, but before it could go ahead, Ian came under pressure from the university to step down from this role. Why? We do not know for sure – but I consider it wouldn’t be in the realms of conspiracy theory to assume the university may also have come under some pressure concerning this meeting. Fortunately, Ian remained steadfast and simply issued a clarifying statement on the night, stating that he was chairing the meeting in the interests of democracy because “there is a real need for discussion in local politics.”
Everyone present that evening then heard the “bombshell disclosure” from one market trader that Canterbury City Council had actually been failing in its duty to properly take pitch fees from market traders for over a year, and had accepted nothing at all in payment during that current tax year, while claiming it had problems with the card reader used. Concerned about having debts run up through no fault of their own, the market traders had asked if they could make payments by cash – only for the council to refuse.
On learning of this, it appeared to everyone at the meeting that not only had the city council failed in its “fiduciary duty” to take monies owed, but importantly the figures cited in the consultation report authored by Bill Hicks and voted on the night previously by councillors, was misleading in showing “declining levels of income for the market” with no mitigating explanation that the council had been failing to take pitch fees for so long.
Furthermore, the council’s excuse for not accepting payments appeared ludicrous given the fact that the WorldPay card readers used by the council were easily purchased in Canterbury. In fact, during an hour-long meeting I was to have later with Councillor Ben Fitter Harding, the council leader admitted to me that it had been “an interesting experience” to learn about the card machine issue – and the fact that there had been “only one”. When I suggested this excuse was lame because there clearly had been plenty of time to buy another machine, it was Councillor Fitter-Harding himself who pointed out: “they could have got one from WH Smith!”
Importantly, once the Conservative majority at the council had voted for the market’s disbandment using inaccurate information from Bill Hicks’s report, the market traders were then immediately billed for the payments they had been trying to make for over a year. The whole unpopular and seemingly “shady” plans concerning the disbanding of Canterbury Market was one of the many reasons why local constituents voted out the Conservatives at council elections in May last year – together with Ben Fitter-Harding.
The new Labour/Lib Dem coalition then took over headed by Councillor Alan Baldock and Michael Dixey respectively and for market traders and campaigners, a new council administration brought hope that Canterbury Market would indeed return once the redevelopment work was completed in St George’s Street. That hope was then reinforced when both leaders issued statements to the press that the return of Canterbury’s general market had been an “election pledge” and that it would be a quick, easy and popular thing to do. Sadly, it turned out to be neither quick nor easy. Instead, with Bill Hicks still in charge of policy, plans for the market’s return suddenly became mired in complex council procedure.
Market traders and customers were now informed that a “budget” was required which would need to be voted through by councillors after yet another consultation – the third so far on the market issue. Far from being “cheap”, a figure of £61,000 was proposed, though few could possibly comprehend how restoring general market stalls to their previous venue in St Georges Street could prove so expensive – until an annual salary of £45,000 was deemed necessary for a new market inspector – even though a market inspector had always been in place – David Harte. If Harte was not to hold this position, what on earth could this new market inspector be expected to do that was worth the major part of a budget to return a general market?
At this time, the word “events” began to creep back into council parlance, and in the job description for this new post, later clarified as trading events comprising temporary specialist markets in St Georges Street – as distinct from a general market.
Such events have always taken place in Canterbury City, for example, a themed Christmas market attracts traders to Canterbury from as far away as Birmingham. Such events produce income for the council due to the high rents charged to those who trade at them (typically around £100 per day for the Christmas market for around forty days trading.) However, this was always extraneous to the traditional general market worked by local market traders. Now, it became clear that Canterbury City Council was showing its true intention: to attract specialised themed market events to St George’s Street – something which the Tory administration had always planned to do once the area was “de-cluttered” and the redevelopment work completed.
Hicks’s new consultation report also cited a proposed increase in the cost of market trader pitch rents which were to rise to £81.15 per day for the size of pitch used by the traders for their 6m by 3m gazebo stalls. While Labour councillors like Connie Nolan have been keen to quote to the media that this represents only a 10% increase on the former cost of such stalls, she has failed to point out that the former prices were also inflated compared to the cost of market stalls elsewhere. In fact, the proposed pitch rent for Herne Bay market was £38.50 and stalls at the highly successful Faversham Market (which is run most efficiently, not by a council, but by a traders’ cooperative) cost £1 per foot on a week day, £2 per foot on a weekend and only £1.60 on a weekend to local traders. That amounts to a maximum cost of £40 for a weekend stall as opposed to £81.15 for a market stall in Canterbury on a single Wednesday market day.
At a public meeting on 13 December 2023, covered by BBC Radio Kent, a market trader made it clear to the council representatives present: Bill Hicks and councillors, Alan Baldock, Pip Hazelton, Connie Nolan and Michael Dixey, that since losing market trader status and having to “transition” to street trader status in order to do any trading at all (on small pitches tied to annual licences) the former market traders have felt increasingly insecure about speaking up on these issues. Nevertheless, they made it abundantly clear that £40 was considered to be a reasonable and affordable pitch rent for a 6m x 3m gazebo stall, with a £30 rate for any new trader coming on the site because a new general market would need to re-establish itself in St George’s Street after such a long hiatus.
In order to make a living, the market traders explained they would also need two market days in the week, as before, Wednesday and Friday, and to be able to trade on their current street trader pitches outside of St George’s Street on the remaining five (or six) days of the week when the market was closed.
I am absolutely aware that many local people submitted comments to Bill Hicks’s consultation agreeing with the market traders’ comments on this, because many of those people sent copies of their responses to me, as spokesperson for the Save Canterbury Market campaign. However, in the subsequent consultation report authored again by Bill Hicks, only one anonymous trader’s comment was made visible.
Having feared this would happen, before the consultation report was published I had written to Matthew Archer, Head of Corporate Governance at Canterbury City Council, explaining the importance of showing all comments made by the public on this consultation due to a loss of public confidence in Hicks’s second consultation report which had given a misleading impression concerning the market’s “declining” income at a time when the council had been failing to accept pitch rents. I was informed by Matthew Archer that he would discuss this with Hicks, only to hear nothing more until the final report was published. I then submitted an official complaint to Matthew which was, in effect, summarily dismissed and by doing so, I consider the needs of Canterbury market traders and the loyal customers who have supported them for many years were also shamefully dismissed.
A new market inspector, Sharlie Dunstan, has now been put in place and last week, a group of traders set up stalls in St George’s Street for what amounted to a PR opportunity for council leader, Alan Baldock, and his Labour councillors: Pip Hazelton, Connie Nolan and Mel Dawkins – all of whom have been fully aware for months of not only the market traders’ needs – but their justified grievances.
On the same day, the Lib Dem leader, Michael Dixey was also present in St George’s Street, posing for press photos after witnessing the fact that every single original Canterbury general market trader remained, in effect, exiled away from St Georges Street – on small street trader pitches. Police were also in evidence causing some to wonder whether they had been called to potentially manage another feared protest in St George’s Street.
But if this really was such a wonderful achievement on behalf of the current council coalition, why would anyone have had cause to protest? In fact, I’m sure every councillor posing for press cameras in St George’s Street last week, elbowing their way to hear vox pops given by members of the public to TV and radio presenters, were perfectly aware that this was, in fact, no achievement at all, something that seemed clearly understood by members of the media who duly invited me to speak on behalf of the “muzzled” general market traders trading in another part of the city. I did so on BBC Radio Kent that morning.
Go to time code 1:35:10 to listen on this link:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0j651sq
| The Wake Up Call – 17/07/2024 – BBC Sounds Anna Cookson brings you breaking news and the big stories of the day. www.bbc.co.uk |
And later in the day on ITV Meridian News during the following item:
Also in a BBC News article here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd1xrw55zvzo
In all those reports I made clear that the self-congratulatory statements from Councillor Baldock and Co were wholly unjustified. Councillor Connie Nolan used the term “whingeing” in her own comments – offering an impression that I was somehow raining on the council’s parade – but in truth there is no reason at all for this council to congratulate itself.
Labour and the Lib Dems have not returned the general market to Canterbury but instead hired a costly market inspector, now dubbed “development officer”, to move a few stalls from a specialist market outside the council-owned Whitefriars building for a media jamboree in St George’s Street featuring stall holders who are not general market traders and will only be in evidence on one day a week until 31 October when this “market” closes yet again before opening as a specialist Christmas market on November 15. Thereafter, it will be closed until March 2025!
What kind of market is this? And how could any general market trader be expected to survive by trading one day a week in what is clearly now a location for themed “markets” at high pitch prices which can be afforded only by the kind of traders who travel the country to such events?
The previous Tory administration was always up front about its own social prejudice against general market trading, with talk about the need for “artisan” themed markets selling French cheeses – and no “tat”. In our meeting, Ben Fitter-Harding had described to me his “vision” for the future of Canterbury’s street trading as “more seasonal markets”, a vegan market like one that had existed near Westgate, a “proper farmer’s market” and “special markets” to feature at different times of the year – such as Easter.
In opposition, Alan Baldock had instead spoken at a council meeting of market traders being allowed to sell whatever they liked as long as it was legal. But now, in power, he and his councillors have simply completed the work of the previous Tory administration under Ben Fitter-Harding. It also seems likely that Baldock himself is solely responsible for this as Michael Dixey made clear to market traders at the meeting on 13 December when he stated that it was Baldock who had insisted on taking charge of this portfolio himself.
Perhaps, finding himself in power after so many years, Alan Baldock hoped to gain some kudos for doing so? In my view, and that of everyone who fought for the rightful return of a general market in Canterbury, he should now simply hang his head in shame.
The best I can possibly say of the elected councillors involved in this sorry affair is that they were naïve and perhaps even ignorant of the fact that rather than directing events, they are nothing more than puppets whose role is to vote through policy that’s ultimately designed and guided by salaried council officers like Bill Hicks.
Interestingly, Bill Hicks also happens to be on the board of Canterbury BID, an organisation that supports businesses – not market traders – and when Canterbury’s market traders were advised to join BID and duly handed over money to this body, they were then informed they weren’t able to join. BID also takes up the case of any shopkeepers who complain about markets stalls, which begs the following question: is what we have witnessed so far simply a conflict of interest between general market traders and forces that were always in league to control them – and ultimately banish them from St George’s Street forever?
Furthermore, who is it at Canterbury City Council who really pulls the strings? For twenty-five years that was the job of chief executive, Colin Carmichael, to whom we paid a six-figure salary for doing so. During his time in power, Carmichael’s expenses were to come into question in the national press, but in 2022 Carmichael retired and his post was abolished with no-one appearing to have replaced him.
Does this mean that we never actually needed a Chief Executive in the first place? If so, why did we pay Carmichael so much, and for so long? Looking at the council website, three names are now given as members of “senior management”; Tricia Marshall, Peter Davies and Suzi Wakeham. None is shown to be in overall control or acting in the role of Chief Executive, so, where did this policy regarding the general market’s demise originate? Elected councillors? Or salaried council officers?
Many local people who support the general market and its original market traders, consider this issue to be nothing short of a scandal, along with the fact that crucial news about this appears available only within items of independent citizen’s journalism, like this, on the Whitstable Views site. Last week, a press statement by the Save Canterbury Market campaign was ignored by the Kent Messenger news group, unsurprisingly, considering the council’s Head of Communications is none other than Leo Whitlock – the former editor of the Kent Messenger Gazette newspaper.
If last week’s events have demonstrated anything at all, it’s that the council has shown itself determined to keep hold of its own narrative regarding the market – and regardless of what has really happened. It’s therefore heartening to have seen numerous comments on social media showing that in spite of the council’s PR offensive, few residents have been convinced that what happened last Wednesday resembled anything like a general market returning to St George’s Street. There were even questions raised as to whether the limited stock shown on these stalls looked likely even to cover the pitch rent.
One thing is for sure, Alan Baldock and his puppet councillors have underestimated the intelligence of local people. The “return” of Canterbury Market is nothing but a sham – and that’s why Canterbury’s general market traders and their loyal customers have been betrayed.
“The councillors who voted for these plans clearly want to replace the old working class market model with middle-class farmer’s markets selling organic produce at inflated prices—and craft stalls, beyond the pockets of most people. That’s what this is really about. They want to make the city centre in their own image, full of faux rustic produce, sourdough bread and unpasteurised cheeses: the sort of place they can feel at home in… There should be room for everyone. There should be a market – in one place: St George’s Street.”
Comment made in 2022 about the Tory council’s plans – still sadly relevant today under a Labour/Lib Dem coalition.
NB Whitstable Carnival 2024 would like to thank the original Canterbury general market traders who are still working as street traders outside of St George’s Street, for their most generous donation of items to our recent fundraising auction at St Peter’s Hall, Whitstable on 20 July 2024. All the items were sold and helped to raise funds for the upcoming Whitstable Carnival on Saturday 3 August. Thank you.
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.
More on Canterbury Market in Whitstable Views:
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