Shopping centre given praise by market traders

THE Forge Shopping Centre has been praised by market traders after bosses have “bent over backwards” to help them.

We reported yesterday that the company that operates the Market Village within the East End shopping centre has gone into liquidation.

On Monday night, around 35 business owners were left “devastated” after being told they were unable to trade the following day – just weeks before Christmas.

Andy Brady, who owns Stadium Signings, a signed sports memorabilia business, says the management team at The Forge has “been amazing”.

He will now be selling his stock from a stall elsewhere in the shopping centre, after being temporarily relocated to get him through the Christmas period.

But following the unexpected news earlier this week, the 32- year- old, from Balloch, was left worried about what was going to happen.

He said: “I genuinely had no idea what I was going to do, whether it was just going to be online and have to take the hit on losing the shop or whether I’d manage to get anywhere else.

“Christmas is by far my busiest time of year.

“I wasn’t there on Monday at the time everyone was told, there were not many people in at the time.

“One of the other traders let me know but it wasn’t until later on that night I found out. I didn’t know what to feel, I didn’t know what was happening. I hadn’t spoken to anyone from the company, nobody really knew what was happening.”

Andy, who has been based within the Market Village for three years, spent time on Tuesday and Thursday clearing his stock.

He added: “It was horrible seeing everybody walking about not knowing what they were going to do and where they were going to go.

“We got word on Wednesday that we could get in again on Thursday, and I took the rest of my stuff and I’ve got all that in the house. There are only a few wee bits and pieces left.

“I’ve managed to secure another place in the shopping centre, but I’ve been in the market for three years, people know where I am, so we’ll find out how the move affects me, but at the minute I don’t really know.

“It might work out better, it might work out worse, I don’t know.

“The shopping centre has been amazing, they have made sure everyone has got what they wanted. Jade has bent over backwards to try to get us in as quickly as possible.

“Most of the people that were in the market are being relocated, so it’s good to see that we’re getting somewhere.”

A spokesperson for The Forge said: “This came as a shock to us also at 5pm on Monday. The centre is working hard to house as many of the retailers as we can and as quickly as we can to have these traders open for the Christmas trade.

“There is a lot of work going on behind the scenes at the moment, and we hope to be able to announce where these retailers can trade from in the coming days.”

The Market Village was contacted for comment.