In 1890 Michael Marx hung a tray around his neck and wandered around Kirkgate market in Leeds selling his wares to the public. From these inauspicious beginnings became one of the Britain’s foremost retail outlets, Marks & Spencer.

Leeds City Council would like to think that the recent success of Leeds businesses and financial sectors owes a lot to the spirit of Marx. The idea that the little guy can rise to the top through good honest graft, in an encouraging atmosphere of free enterprise.

Much has been written of the prosperous Leeds of today. Everyone is proudly told of how it is the UK’s fastest growing financial city outside of London. Take a walk around the city centre and you will be faced with high-rise penthouse apartments, trendy café bars and chic boutiques, an image of prosperity and growth representing exactly how the council wishes Leeds to appear to the country: a city on the rise.

However if you were to continue past Harvey Nicks to the East Side of the city, to the birthplace of the Marks & Spencer, an altogether different image emerges. Stallholders who have had pitches in Kirkgate market for decades, passed down from generation to generation, say they are being forced out by colossal rent increases by Leeds City Council.

New contracts are set to increase rents by up to 90 per cent.

A worker on Bryan’s florist stall, who did not wish to be identified, said: “The rise in rents just reflects the divide that exists in the city between poor and rich. We here in the market are outcasts in the unfashionable eastern district of the city centre. Stalls lie empty while penthouse apartments are erected all over the city.”

The controversy began in October 2002 when the council began reviewing the rents for stallholders at the market in October 2002. This came as no surprise to the traders as no review had taken place for nearly 10 years. Then the traders heard nothing.

Until shortly before Christmas last year that is. All traders received notice that their rents were to be nearly doubled in some cases and that this was to be backdated to the start of the review, 14 months earlier, placing them all instantly into arrears. Overnight stallholders found themselves up to £14, 500 in debt. They were given one week to respond.

Uproar amongst the traders followed. Faced with a deluge of complaints the council then presented stallholders with a “compromise offer”. Arrears would be reduced by up to 50 percent and remaining back rent could be repaid in instalments over a 12-month period. However to qualify for this concession, stallholders had to sign up to a new council lease agreements. These agreements exclude them from the tenants’ rights laid out in the Landlord Act. Under the new contract, market traders had no real ownership of their stall and would face great difficulty in selling their plot should they have wished.

Trader Christine Hill runs a lingerie stall that her mother opened in 1963. “My mother got this spot through word of mouth. At the time you couldn’t get a spot on this market for love nor money. It was so in demand.

“The new proposals are just not fair. My rent is being increased by 90 per cent including all the surcharges the council has added. It just seems so stupid when there are stalls empty in the market to be forcing traders out like this. If anything the council should be trying to encourage people in.”

Christine feels that she, like others, is being bullied out of her plot. “They contacted us just before Christmas, knowing full well that it was our busiest period of the year, telling us we had one week to reply to these new contractual demands! There is no way anyone here would have had time to have a proper consultation with a solicitor. Others and myself have had threats of forfeiture of our stalls if we cannot comply with payments. I think the council have been very underhand in their dealings.”

While matters may seem bleak for market traders they are not prepared to give in without a fight. Over 30 traders have so far refused to accept the new deals proposed by the council and a concerted legal challenge is being made to the biggest threat the market has faced in its history.

Danny Richardson, a senior solicitor with Emsleys solicitors, is representing 19 traders who account for over 30 of the market’s stalls. He said: “The council have been very disingenuous with their claims as regard to figures. The figures they have released do not reflect what is happening to many of the market’s traders.

“Many of the stallholders feel as if a gun is being held to their head. They have been presented with the option of either paying a huge sum of arrears, or of losing their statutory rights. If anyone should be making up the shortfall in rents it should be the council. They have failed to review market stall rents for nearly 10 years and are now penalising traders for their having been remiss.”

Mr Richardson has tried to contact the council to enter into dialogue with over possibility of a reaching a compromise, but has been met with flat refusal. “Not only have I been told that the door is not open to discussion, I have been told that is locked and bolted.”

A spokeswoman for Leeds City Council said: “The rents increase has been based on an independent review and we are satisfied with its conclusions. We are very keen to encourage the markets to grow and develop.”

Many stallholders have speculated that the council wishes to close down the markets altogether. Council Chief Executive Paul Rogerson has given his “unqualified assurance that the council no such intention”. He also added that the council had invested £11 million invested in the markets in last few years.

However today 55 stalls in the Kirkgate market lie empty.

One can only speculate as to how Michael Marx would have coped in a city that prioritises penthouses and boutiques over market traders.