Council cancels meeting over future of market
LAST-MINUTE DECISION ‘NOT VERY PROFESSIONAL’, SAYS TRADER
A MEETING with Victoria Market traders has been pulled at the last minute as they continue to call for more certainty on the site’s future.
Nottingham City Council said it would start holding monthly meetings with traders, the first of which took place on March 12.
Yet the meeting for April 25 was postponed by the council with just a few days’ notice. The meeting was described as a chance to update traders “on the future of the indoor market” and will now be held in May, although no precise date has yet been set.
Nick Clark, who runs Cobblers and Keys, said: “They cancelled at the last minute, so that’s not very professional. I want a business, I want to make a living.”
Traders were initially told the council would surrender its lease on February 24, 2022, with some having signed compensation offers and arranged new premises to move into. This date came and went with no further certainty and it was eventually confirmed that negotiations had fallen through with Global Mutual, the asset managers of the Victoria Market.
Traders remained in a state of limbo until a meeting called on December 11 last year when the city council said it wanted to close the market this summer. The council said negotiations with Global Mutual had been “both complex and protracted” and that talks would continue over the termination of the lease agreement, which the council says would have cost it £39 million over the next 50 years.
No further detail has been given since on how and when the closure will happen. It comes after Mr Clark was recently recognised at an awards ceremony hosted by the National Market Traders’ Federation, where he was given an award for his “outstanding work on behalf of market traders”.
Mr Clark said that at the ceremony, a presentation was given by those planning a new market in Derby and that one official said they would “take the customers from Nottingham”.
Mr Clark said: “Nottingham City Council say that shopping habits have changed, but Derby have a waiting list of traders wanting to get in.”
In its letter explaining why the meeting had been postponed, the city council said: “This is due to a delay in receiving information required for the meeting, due to the Easter holidays. I apologise for the inconvenience.”
Explaining the purpose for the monthly meetings after the first one on March 12, the city council previously said: “This was the first in a series of regular meetings that we’ve set up with trader representatives to keep them informed of developments as we look to close later this year. Until then, the market remains open.”