Special report on the future of town’s market
Exposed to the elements, reduced to a three day week and fighting for customers, traders are urging the powers that be to take Rochdale Market into the 21st Century. Nick Statham reports.
ON a bitterly cold and damp Monday morning Rochdale’s hardiest market traders are beginning their working day.
Stallholders shiver under gazebos which offer them limited protection from the biting wind.
They are not overrun with customers, it would be fair to say, with many presumably put off by the inclement weather.
And they’re not alone in deciding to give the market a miss this morning.
One trader says that around half of the usual crew expected here today have not bothered to pitch up, as they don’t make enough money to make it worth their while on days when it is wet and cold.
Irrespective of the weather though, these market traders have been operating in a harsh climate for some time now – and an ill wind continues to blow through the stalls.
Since 2015 traders have moved from their long time home in the Exchange Shopping Centre, to temporary sites in Smith Street and Yorkshire Street.
A long-delayed move to The Butts, in August last year, was meant to see the renaissance of the market and play a key role in revitalising the town centre.
But things have not gone to plan.
At the end of September, the council severed ties with Quarterbridge – the operator it had appointed to run the market, on the grounds it was ‘not meeting expectations.’
Rochdale Council and Rochdale Development Agency (RDA) have now taken over its running – in what they admit is a ‘damage limitation’ exercise – with the hope a new operator can ultimately be found.
At a recent council meeting, Liberal Democrat leader Councillor Andy Kelly questioned whether there was a ‘Plan B’ for the market, and how long town hall chiefs would give it before admitting defeat?
Damian Cooke, operations director at RDA, said there were plans to promote the facility over the coming financial year, in a bid to gain some momentum and attract a new operator.
Plans are in the pipeline for a once-a-month artisan market plus a food market on Fridays run by an outfit that currently operates three days a week in Manchester.
Councillors are divided on whether the lack of town centre footfall or the limited range of stalls on offer is the market’s main problem.
But those on the stalls say the issues they face are more fundamental – including a lack of cover and basic facilities for customers and traders alike.
John Galvin, who has run a household products stall for 30 years, says the market is now ‘a joke’.
“This market will not be a success. It will be all right in the summer, but as soon as it snows or rains, it’s a waste of time.
“What they want to do is build a purpose-built market from scratch, with all the facilities. Put some nice stalls in and do it from scratch.
“This is a joke. Gazebos? It’s 2019 not 1905.
“There’s no cover and no one will come. If they had a proper cover over the market so people could come and be dry, park up and do their shopping – that’s half the battle.”
“There are plenty of traders who want to come on, but won’t come because the elements force them off.
“There’s no lights, no heating, we are set up in joke gazebos. It will be deserted – only half of us turned out today because of the rain.” He adds that Rochdale could host a successful market – but it would need to be undercover and inviting for customers.
“If it was an undercover market and a people-friendly market it could be a success, but it’s not a people-friendly market you can walk through. It’s weatherdependent,” he said.
A school of thought among some councillors, including Labour’s Coun Peter Williams, is that the market will only begin to thrive once the new Riverside Shopping Centre opens and traders begin to benefit from the increased footfall.
But John thinks the money would have been better spent on a purposebuilt market.
“Instead of spending millions on that (the new Riverside Shopping Centre) they should have spent millions on a new market,” he said.
“It’s up to them to get their act in gear.”
The stallholder also trades at Manchester and Oldham and says Rochdale rates are ‘bottom of the list’.
Alison Melia has run a watch and batteries stall in Rochdale for nearly 40 years.
As she talks to this reporter, a stall assistant produces a council-produced leaflet.
It promises traders a ‘very high quality’ market and that ‘stalls will also benefit from lighting and heating providing an enhanced trader and shopper experience.’
But Alison says that none of this has materialised. She describes the current situation as ‘diabolical’.
And, like her colleague John, she believes traders need a ‘proper brick building’ to operate from.
“For 38 years we have been in Rochdale and I’ve never seen it like this,” she explains.
“They promised us this fantastic market so we were all excited and thinking it was going to be fantastic and it’s a joke. It’s not fit for purpose.”
She believes Quarterbridge could have made a success of the market, had they been given more time.
“It was better in August when we were run by Quarterbridge , and they were doing their best , but they didn’t give them long enough.
“He (the former market manager) was very, very good, He was all the time on the site, helping you, he was talking to you, putting gazebos up everyday.”
Alison says traders feel ‘let down’ by the council, which she says has not taken their views on board.
“We just trade in Rochdale because we have been here for so long and have very good, loyal customers.
“But it’s getting to the stage we just can’t go on like this. Something is going to have to happen, because we are going to have to pull out.”
The council and RDA say there will be a big push behind the market from now until the end of the next financial year, which ends in March 2020.
But Alison is unconvinced it has that long.
“No, it will not survive, I don’t think it will,” she said. “It’s not fit for purpose, we need something all-weather, to know we are going to Rochdale and we are going to be secure and we are going to be able to trade.”
The market has also been reduced to threedays-a-week after bosses ditched Fridays on the grounds that, being Islamic prayer day, both customers and stall holders were thin on the ground.
“From a financial point of view, it’s not viable for the council, but if they keep shutting days down, it’s never going to build up, they need to let it be open and let it build up so people get used to it being open again, ” Alison says.
“Financially it’s diabolical, it’s crippling because of the number of days. I can’t survive on three days takings.”
However she does agree with councillors that the opening of the new Riverside Shopping Centre will drive up footfall and benefit the market.
“Yes, I’m looking forward to that, that will help,” she adds.
“They should have positioned us in that new centre, in a new building, with all the shops and facilities with all the light and heating and treated us like human beings.”
Peter Jordan, whose egg stall is a mainstay of the market, is saddened by its current state – and believes the decision to drop Saturdays has been a huge mistake.
“They have made a right mess of it, to save the council money they have cut down to three days – Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. Every market in Lancashire works at least Friday and Saturday.
“My family has never missed a market day in 100 years – through the wars and everything – but the last three weeks we have missed the Friday market.”
He describes the move as ‘a false economy’ adding ‘nobody is trying to help us, just hinder us, but we have people who want serving all the time’.
“We are very, very proud of what we do, people queue up for us – we have personally looked at doing Bury Market and people will follow us.
“If we go to Bury it will be to the detriment of Rochdale but we don’t want to go, we want to be here.
“We will always be on a market somewhere, and we want to be in Rochdale.
“But they have cut the market down one day – 25 per cent – by virtue of the fact they want to save money.
“But they have penalised the main day and the main retailers.
“If we had another day or two days we would be very happy, but they have done it a strange way stopping Fridays. It’s a false economy.
He describes Rochdale as ‘a good summer market’. But like Alison and John, he says traders need a ‘proper building’ for all weathers – and basic facilities. “We have got nothing of what they have promised us, they have done absolutely nothing.
“It’s costing us £6 per day for heating (from a camper stove), the whole thing is completely wrong,” he said.
The few customers who brave the biting wind to wander through the market, are also critical of the market – albeit they are sympathetic towards the traders.
Peter Brierley says he has been visiting the market for years, but was scathing about its current incarnation.
“The market, to me, it’s not a market, it’s trying to act as a market, but there’s no lighting, no heating, no water, no toilets – you have to go in the indoor market if you want to use the toilet, it’s crazy.
“I don’t think these people are (being treated fairly), I worked on markets in Halifax and all over and I have never worked at a market with no heating or running water where you can wash your hands. There are a lot of people selling food, there should be running water.”
Peter, from Wardle, added: “Last week it was all bad weather and they lost a week’s trading, they couldn’t come down last week because of the weather, you can’t expect them to put up stalls in the snow, it’s not right.”
And Roy Charlesworth, a customer from Castleton echoed traders comments about needing proper protection from the elements.
“It’s all right in the summer but these gazebos will blow away in a gale. I go to Bury, everyone goes to Bury.
“I love Rochdale, Rochdale’s a wonderful place, but I just think this is a big disappointment – and to the market traders as well.
“The goods are going to get damp and miserable and blow away, it needs something proper.
“It’s not much fun shivering in this sort of weather. I would imagine it puts off customers, the comments people make are it’s not worth coming down as there are not enough stalls, which is a shame, really.”
He added that an outdoor market was ‘a waste of time’.
“The ideal thing would be to have a building like over there (the new Riverside Shopping Centre) and have everything in one place.”
Damian Cooke, of RDA, recently told councillors that chiefs were looking to the long term future of the market. He said: “We have kept the market going in order to give the existing traders a livelihood, but the reality is we would all like to see an improved offer and quality produce in the market, but it’s going to take time.”
He added: “We have said all along we really need to give it 12 months, and we are really looking at running the market from April this year to March next year – a full 12 months to really try and improve it and make the most of the summer, when we get more traders, and try to build on what we have got.”
He added that a new ‘very experienced’ market manager was now on board, but he was currently encountering a lot of ‘negativity’ around the market and the town.
Pushed by Coun Kelly on whether chiefs would have to accept at some point that the market was not viable, he said: “We are not at the stage now where we can say it won’t work, because we haven’t had that opportunity to run it and find out, we need a 12-month period.”