Quote:
Originally Posted by Neil
What are your opinions on what should and should not be done to make sure the market hall survives and indeed thrives?
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Listening to people who have had 40 years experience of being self-employed would be a fine start.
You don't start up your own business to be told how to run it and what is being asked of them simply isn't financially viable and never will be. I don't think six-day trading would have been viable for market traders in the 1980s, let alone now.
Drop the rents to a reasonable price and fill the stalls, don't squeeze every last penny out of the successes and have vast gaps for crocheting and c-list celebrities.
Invest money into the wider town centre to make Accrington more attractive as a whole. The Market Hall is not the primary reason for everybody coming to town, it is simply something that many people wander through out of interest so don't treat it as being the glittering jewel in the crown and heap tremendous pressure on the traders by telling them that it is their fault if Wednesday trading fails.
The financial setup of managing the markets is also a complete shambles, crying out for some of Cameron's cuts along with other areas of Peter's council.
There is nothing particularly difficult about putting the Market Hall right but there are still blinkered Tory zealots who are insistent that Labour is hoping it doesn't succeed. Nothing could be further from the truth and both myself and Cllr Clare Pritchard have been trying to work with the Tories and the traders to sort it out but the message that Wednesdays are a bad idea is being ignored. All this arguing is simply over Peter Britcliffe and Marlene Haworth desperately trying to save face and the longer it goes on the worse it will get for them.
Please admit defeat and let the traders get on with running their own businesses.