Once again we are assured by Richard Church, writing at great length in the Chronicle & Echo (Viewpoint 19/02/09), that all is for the best in his blue sky dreams for the future of the market.
His letter, like his speeches, is full of glib half-truths and misleading statements. Let's dissect him straight away:
He begins by saying the council is not proposing 'pop-up gazebos'. Well, the one we have had on display this week outside the NBC presentation caravan is certainly a pop-up gazebo, and it is this model that Liberal Democrat councillors on propaganda duty here have been enthusing about all week. They have even been telling the public lies like saying the market traders approve of the gazebos. The traders were asked about these stalls last year, and you can read their verdict here:
http://www.northamptonmarket.biz/html/archive_news.html#PleydellReport
Question: If demountable stalls were introduced on the market what impact would they have?
A large negative difference was the highest score across the board.
72.5% of traders questioned said that modern removable stalls would have a large negative effect on their business.
Church also says 'nor will anyone be denied a place to trade'. Well, that's news to me and the other traders who are being denied the trading places we have had and built up trade on for the last 10 - 40 years; we who are being shunted into somewhere else at the top of the market to make room for an empty space on which occasional events may be taking place.
Church then waffles on about how the market square should be 'used' when there is no market there. Used what for, Richard? Evening events do not benefit the market traders who have gone home after a long 12-14 hour day, nor the town's shopkeepers who have closed for the day.
I thought the purpose of this upheaval was to help bring trade into the town centre? For what trade, the pub trade? They're the only ones likely to benefit from evening and night-time events.
And think what it will cost the council to clean up the Square the next day! Have they factored that in too? Last time there was a small jazz festival council operatives had to clean up eight buckets of human manure from the marketplace. Are these the sort of clientèle Richard Church would like to encourage? Surely not. Hardly cafe culture, at all.
'For most of the week, our Market Square stands idle.' He writes. Obviously he hasn't noticed there is a market on the Square, every Monday through Saturday. Perhaps he wanders about in blue sky dreamland, seeing only the buildings, and not the market. How can he make a statement about the Square being idle when there is a market there almost every day of the week? What planet is he on?
A bit further on Church states he will be retaining most of the present stalls. This is news to us, as in the NBC plans, phase three, about 2-3 years away, it shows all the steel stalls being replaced with pop-up gazebos, of which they have ordered 150 at £800 each, and so far taken delivery of 30. These 150 stalls will then cost the council £250,000 in labour costs a year to put up and take down, at a conservative estimate. This doesn't include those that get damaged and have to be replaced, of course. That will probably be another £30,000 to £40,000 a year. Perhaps Richard has changed his mind and seen a bit of common-sense, and will be keeping the present ones rather longer. We certainly hope so.
Richard Church seems to forget that what makes the Market Square a much-loved and friendly place for residents and visitors to be is the living market. Without the market the Square is dead, sterile, without life. Every time politicians move the market about they kill somebody's livelihood, take away a few more unique trades, and gradually destroy the ecostructure of the market. If they carry on long enough they will destroy it all.
I have market colleagues who say this is deliberate. They say this is part of a nodding agreement between the Liberal Democrats and Legal and General to first destroy the market, and scatter what stalls are left through the streets, and then to use the market as a bus park when it is time to knock down the present bus station. After that it can be used as a car park for awhile, and then if the much-vaunted massive new Grosvenor Centre is built, one of its main entrances will protrude into the empty Market Square. This is a vision of hell for Northampton town centre that I do not wish to contemplate.
