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Market Misery in Leeds

Mark Casci | 17.03.2004 12:13 | Analysis

The plight of Leeds Kirkgate Market stallholders over rent increases by Leeds city council

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.

Mark Casci
- e-mail: mcheart_soul@hotmail.com

Comments

Hide the following 8 comments

excellent moving report

17.03.2004 15:58

elequent incisive report, more like this please, the same things happeing all over the country, but now the yuppies wear designer clothes and listen to house, rather than wearing Barbours and listening to Queen. We must challenge these processes of yuppiefication.

urban man


They Walk Among Us

17.03.2004 16:38

"elequent incisive report, more like this please, the same things happeing all over the country, but now the yuppies wear designer clothes and listen to house, rather than wearing Barbours and listening to Queen. We must challenge these processes of yuppiefication."

And some of them walk amongst us!

anon


No Profit

17.03.2004 17:38

These stallholders do not deserve our support. They are capitalists, trying to earn profit. This is wrong. No profit on trade should be allowed. All rescources MUST be shared equaly among society.

anti USA


Cah to live

17.03.2004 17:43

Thye may be earning a profit, but how does this differ from all those earning a wage to live? Surely all people whom work are greasing the wheels of capital if that were the case? Are you against all people who work?

dsklfhdklf


uninspired

21.03.2004 17:25

whilst i don't feel i entirely sympathise with the views of 'anti U S A' above, he or she does have something of a point. it's hard to feel in the least bit inspired by the idea of helping these minor capitalists who only rip you off a little bit defend themselves against the larger-scale capitalists who would rip you off a lot. or worse still, of fighting their battle on their behalf. i'm sure it's not entirely devoid of merit but i couldn't imagine actually wanting to devote any time to this kind of support. surely any struggle against yuppification is better centred around people's homes than protecting the interests of the petty bourgeoisie. is there, perhaps some hidden leftist agenda of coming in as an external group and capitalising on these market traders struggle in an attempt to 'radicalise' them? this whole thing seems at best a bizarre thing for anyone other than the traders themselves to want to prioritise and at worst slightly sinister.

mot


Community not moral politics

05.04.2004 12:21

Moral anti capatalism is all well and dandy from neer so well middle class lefty student types, who can afford to buy organic food and pay that bit more. Defending leeds market is essential for the daily living capacity of the not so socially and economically mobile who depend on cheap prices to feed and cloth themselves. kirkgate is the last bastion of leeds that represents those who are not part of the upwardly mobile and solidarity should be shown and the gangsters at leeds city council should be opposed.

Ya Basta!

Leeds Citizen


agree

21.04.2004 23:48

I agree with the latest poster. where int he world are you supposed to go to get the things you need to live, such as food and clothing, if you do not have an enormous pile of money. if the kirkgate vendors are forced out actual real people will be hurt. leaving them to twist int he wind would only work to the advantage of the yuppie types who don't want ordinary people around anyway.

n


Are you all mental???

27.04.2004 19:02

All you people are nuts. Why are you whining on about capitalism etc when the market traders are just honest people earning an honest living. So I guess every shop owner the world over is just someone to rip you off??? Yeah share the wealth, non profit etc etc would be great but would only really work if the world consisted of 1 person, then there would be no one else who wanted a bit more, no one to aspire to be more successful. Lets get real shall we. The market traders are a lifeline for those who dont have a 20k+ income. They make it possible for people to still have a standard of living who without them would have to go without, end up in debt etc. It's absolutely rediculous for Leeds City Council to impose on them these demands for back rent and to increase the rents by such a huge percentage. I feel that bodies like city councils have far to much power to just destroy peoples lives as and when they please, I could go on forever about how power is abused and how the publics hands are tied but thats another story. At the end of the day the council failed to do their job properly in the first place but are now trying to penalize the traders and take no responsibility for their own incompetence. Its bloody rediculous. If you get something wrong its your own fault.

Nik
mail e-mail: nik_rank1@hotmail.com


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