For the past forty six years I have worked on Northampton Market, rain and shine. I have seen great changes not only to the market itself but also to the centre of the town.
I feel our market square has a cloud hanging over it since changes have been forced on our market. Market traders have a long history of standing up against unfair councils.
In the 1960's scores of small coaches would come in from outlying villages on market days, and the large bus station in Derngate would be thronged with people coming and going to the busy Wednesday and Saturday markets.
I remember the Chronicle & Echo on the corner of Newland, the Emporium Arcade at the north of the Square, shops included Church's China, Sainsbury's, Baxter's, Lipton's, James Bros., Abel & Sons, and several others. And the Lord Palmerston pub, of course.
Over the years many of these fine retail businesses have gone, to make way for dull insurance offices and greedy banks and estate agents, who have taken away the 'life' of the town centre. The high rates and stifling business rate have ensured the small independent retailer has great difficulty trading in the modern town centre; most have long since packed and gone, and the few that remain have a hard time of it.
In those days the numbers of customers you served in one day on a fruit and veg. stall could be numbered in hundreds and even thousands. To give you some idea of the quantities involved in selling fruit and vegetables, locally-grown tomatoes were in great demand and something like eight hundredweight could be sold from one stall on a busy day. If most customers bought only a pound apiece, that's well over eight hundred customers for tomatoes alone!
Lorry loads of strawberries arrived all day long from Wisbech, and there was enormous demand for salads which came in daily from Bedfordshire. Masses of bananas were piled up and sold every market day, with lads working hard to stack up the emptying displays.
If you looked at a fruit & veg. stall in those days all you would see would be the backs of people sometimes three or four deep, crowding around to be served. It's a long time since I saw that on Northampton Market.
The present council's plans for the market must be reconsidered, as must the way in which they intend to move traders. Moving a market around every couple of years is a recipe for disaster; after every move the market drops traders, and those traders who are left drop customers, and everyone is left much worse off than before.
The 'civic space' they made last time they moved the market has brought no more footfall or customers into the market or the town centre, and we have seen more traders leave. So now they want to make the 'civic space' twice as big. What for? Twice no more customers is still no more customers. We and our businesses are being moved without our consent. I feel our human rights are being breached. I think we should take this to the European Court of Human Rights.
