These political people, who have never worked a market, and have probably never even stood a day at a car boot sale, somehow consider themselves qualified to pontificate upon what kind of market stalls we ought to have in the future.
The sort of market stall these people advocate are those which look like a large gazebo, and are put up in the same manner, rather like a huge two or three person umbrella, with an extending framework under the roof, and skinny legs in each corner which have to be weighted down if there's more than a breath of wind. These things are fine for idyllic summer days, or the vicar's garden party, so long as the weather stays fine. They are a damned silly thing to try to use in bad weather. I speak from experience.
You may just remember the 'Underscan' project in February last year (2006). I had to think about it for a minute myself, as the event, billed as 'Art', was eminently forgettable. Huge contraptions were set up at the bottom of the market square for the purpose of projecting fiddly little four-second videos onto the ground. As a cultural event it seemed to be a gigantic flop, as very few people came to see it, and by all accounts most of those who did were disappointed. I was one of those traders whose stalls were taken down to accommodate this event, and we were given gazebo stalls instead, put up and taken down by the market staff.
We organised our display layout to take account of these new stalls, which took a day or two to get used to, but when the rain came down and the wind blew we soon realised their shortcomings. Another shortcoming, and a serious one, was that these stalls had a framework of aluminum, in order to make them relatively light to erect and take down. Two were badly bent in the first couple of days, rendering them useless. I have it on very good authority that by the end of the Underscan project, a matter of a few days, all but two out of a dozen of these gazebo stalls were damaged or bent to an extent which made them almost impossible to use.
Luckily most of the period the light show was on we didn't get bad weather, but we were glad to see our traditional stalls back in place. The gazebos would never stand some of the bad weather we get on Northampton Market. I have seen our present stalls stay in place while their roof-sheets were ripped off by gale-force winds, with both traders and market staff trying desperately to replace them to save gear getting wet.
Imagine what would have happened to the gazebos! They would have slewed around with the wind under them, scattering gear about onto the ground, and would have probably taken flight. A great public safety hazard. So much so, that in towns where gazebos are used, the Toby (the market manager) brings out a wind meter to check the strength of the wind, and if it's more than around 25 or 30 mph, the market is cancelled. Great! So who pays for the stalls if the traders have to go home? Who pays for the perishable gear that cannot be sold? These are the sort of questions that have to be thought about and answered before politicians who know nothing of market working conditions start demanding that we all get seaside gazebo stalls.
