New market layout was confusing maze
AMAJOR change for Derby shoppers came in 1975 when an indoor market was built on the edge of the new Eagle Centre.
For 40 years, people who enjoyed pottering around market stalls had had to cross the busy Morledge to the site of the open market. Now, stallholders and customers were faced with a whole new shopping experience.
But what was billed as a “dream” for market traders and shoppers soon turned into a nightmare.
While the new bright and airy Eagle Centre was welcomed, there was great confusion over the market. As the Derby Evening Telegraph reported: “Newcomers to the covered market at the Eagle Centre may be forgiven if they are reminded of a maze. Such is the labyrinth of stalls – 276 of them – that it is easy to become temporarily lost.”
But, the paper assured readers, there would be no difficulty in traversing the market once direction signs, some illuminated, were installed.
However, the confusion continued and matters went from bad to worse. Only traders appeared to know where anything was situated and they claimed they were constantly being asked for directions to specific stalls.
The main problem centred around the design of the stalls in hexagonal groups of six. The question everyone was soon asking was, “why?”. Make it difficult or awkward for potential customers to find you and they tend to go elsewhere. And many of them did.
An attempt was made to solve the confusing layout by installing ground directions, but shoppers claimed it was like “following the yellow brick road and getting nowhere”.
By the 1980s, the complaints were as vociferous as ever. Then, in 1990, fate appeared to take a hand when it was found there was a problem with fire regulations which had apparently been contravened. The immediate closure of the market was ordered while it was redesigned and rebuilt.