MARKETS CELEBRATE ENGLISH APPLES

Portobello Road, famous for its fashion, antiques and atmosphere, is set to celebrate English apples at a special cooking demonstration on Friday 18 October.

Guest chef Oliver Rowe, from BBC’s Urban Chef series, will join forces with food entrepreneur Clippy McKenna to create a selection of mouth-watering dishes using seasonal traditional English apples - including some from the Brogdale Collections in Kent - which will be on sale at nearby stalls.

This is the fifth year that the Portobello and Golborne Road Markets have promoted English apples. It is part of an ongoing campaign to promote the markets’ fruit and vegetable stalls. This includes a Road Food demonstration on the third Friday of each month and Saturday sample tastings at select stalls.

While English apples are flavour of the month during October, November will have a very definite Middle Eastern and North African theme to coincide with the Royal Borough’s Nour festival of the arts and culture.

Cllr Tim Ahern, Cabinet Member for the Environment, said: “There is a great variety of fruit and vegetables available at Portobello and Golborne Markets and the Road Food demonstrations are an innovative way to promote seasonal food such as English apples. I want to encourage local residents to visit the markets often for food shopping and for inspiration. The value for money, freshness and quality of ingredients on offer is excellent.”

Road Food demonstrations take place on the third Friday of each month at a stall beside the Office shoe shop, 217 Portobello Road. If you have a suggestion for a theme email the Royal Borough’s Markets Office, street.trading@rbkc.gov.uk.

Saturday sample tastings are prepared by volunteer teams from local community organisations and catering colleges. The Markets Office is looking for groups interested in handing out recipe sheets and creating tasty sample dishes from ingredients grown in nearby community kitchen gardens and supplemented by fruit and vegetables bought from the markets and local shops. 

The Teenage Market

How a successful grass roots initiative in Stockport is now being launched nationally. The Teenage Market was created by teenage brothers, Tom and Joe Barratt, in their hometown of Stockport, to give young people free market stalls to try out their creative business ideas. The initiative was developed with the help and support of Stockport Market Manager, Paul Downs and his team, who gave the brothers the use of the renovated Indoor Victorian Market Hall free of charge. Tom and Joe believed that there should be a specialist market designed specifically for the large population of young people in the town, which would give them a free platform to be entrepreneurial, try out a new a business idea and sell creative products.

The concept of The Teenage Market immediately captured people’s imaginations and became an instant hit with young people in the North West. The Teenage Market gave young people who were already selling online a chance to trade at their local market and inspired those who have never considered the idea of trading on a market to give it a go.

Eighteen year old trader, India Wood, said: “The Teenage Market really brings the community together and makes the town a much nicer place. It gives aspirational young people a great opportunity to start something they could be very successful in and creates a totally different view of teen culture than is normally portrayed in the media.”

As well as a creative retail offer, The Teenage Market also included a performance element, giving a much needed, free platform to local performers and large community groups, to showcase their unique skills and talents. The Teenage Market quickly gained local, regional and national media attention and received online backing and support from the Queen of Shops herself, Mary Portas, who described the event as “unique, innovative, inspiring and game-changing”.

Stockport MP and Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Markets, Ann Coffey, has also lent her support to the initiative, which she said: “offers young people an amazing opportunity to showcase their talent and a place to sell their goods.” She went on to say: “a new generation in our market place with their enthusiasm and vitality is proving a magnet to young and old and a powerful regenerative force. Every town should have a Teenage Market.”

The fusion of creative retail and live performance, created a thriving, bustling marketplace in Stockport which has acted as a catalyst to attract a new generation of shoppers and increase footfall to the market area. This achievement led to the brothers being awarded financial support for The Teenage Market from Stockport Council’s Business Challenge Fund which is now enabling them to develop the idea on a national level so that other towns can benefit from the influx of creativity, diversity and community spirit the events bring to market areas.

The brothers had received so many requests to run The Teenage Market in other towns around the country, that they came up with the idea of licensing the event and have created a toolkit from everything they have learned, which includes tips and advice as well as templates for marketing materials, which include the bright, eye-catching branding of The Teenage Market.

As well as this, the brothers have also developed an online portal which will make the management and promotion of each Teenage Market event incredibly easy. From the click of a button, organisers will be able to input the date, time and location of their Teenage Market and then use social media tools to share it online and invite traders to take part.

The national launch of The Teenage Market is being fully supported by NABMA, who are making the initiative a core part of Love Your Local Market 2014, as they look to focus on finding more ways to engage young people with market areas. NABMA CEO, Graham Wilson OBE, said: “The success of the Teenage Market is a clear indication of the positive contribution that young people can bring to markets and help secure the future prosperity of our industry”.

For more information on The Teenage Market visit www.theteenagemarket.co.uk

If you are interested in purchasing a Teenage Market licence and running Teenage Markets in your town then please email info@theteenagemarket.co.uk

THE PROVISION OF HOUNSLOW WORLD FOOD MARKET - LICENCE CONCESSION

The London Borough of Hounslow is looking for a professional market operator to award a concession licence to run the Hounslow World Food Market in Hounslow High Street. This is an exciting project that will build on the on-going regeneration plans for the town centre, helping raise its profile and strengthening its vibrancy. The Hounslow World Food Market shall include hot cooked food and cold food and drinks, delicatessen products, artisan food, and other food related products. All stalls are expected to meet high quality standards and to provide a diverse food offer suitable for a High Street environment, helping to raise aspirations for the town centre as a destination of choice in London. The duration of the contract is four (4) years with the option to extend a further two (2) years subject to successful completion of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).









To view the contract, click here https://online.contractsfinder.businesslink.gov.uk/Common/View%20Notice.aspx?site=1000&lang=en&noticeid=1056351&fs=true

Contact nameAngie Cochrane

Organisation nameLondon Borough of Hounslow - Procurement Hub

AddressSupply Chain Management, Civic Centre, Lampton Road, Hounslow, Middlesex, TW3 4DN

procurement@hounslow.gov.uk
www.hounslow.gov.uk

There's a Great Deal to be had in York.

It’s the place to do business in the North of England: seven million visitors come here to spend each year, so set out your stall to catch this trade. With brilliant train and road links, York is sitting pretty as one of the UK’s most visited cities. People travel from far and wide to visit the historic city and, just a five minute stroll from York Minster, one of the UK’s most-visited attractions, sits  Newgate Market.

Nestling between the Shambles – voted Britain’s Prettiest Street – and the high street heartland of Parliament Street, the market catches the footfall of passing tourists as well as a loyal core of local shoppers. Soon to benefit from a major refurbishment, the market is in one of England’s fastest growing cities and its historic core now has the benefit of extended foot-street hours, giving shoppers more time to linger, browse and buy. York’s markets perfectly complement the mix of high-end boutiques, international brand names, family department stores and high-street. And offer brilliant value in comparison to other, local city centres.

Stall prices start at £7.50 a day, with trader parking at just £2 a day and, for first timers at Newgate, there’s a ‘first day, half price’ deal. Compare that to other local, regional and national market prices, and you’ll see it’s a really competitive deal. Besides the daily market at Newgate there are also fantastic specialist market opportunities. There’s a great deal to be had in York.

For more details or to book, please call 01904 551355 or visit www.york.gov.uk
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CAN YOU CREATE THIS AUTUMN’S FASHION LOOK?

Anyone with an interest in photography or fashion and who wants to create their own particular take on what could be fashionable for the coming autumn/winter season should get to Portobello and Golborne markets and start snapping.

The Portobello & Golborne Look Photo Challenge is now accepting entries from Londoners, locals and visitors alike who will use the markets as their catwalk and trawl the stalls and shops for inspiration to create a unique look for autumn/winter 2013.

The competition aims to celebrate the markets’ diverse and fun fashion tradition.

Cllr Tim Ahern, Cabinet Member for the Environment, said: “The markets have long been a source of fashion inspiration and the competition draws on this tradition. We want entrants to use the markets, visitors, stalls and shops and to come up with a unique look for the coming season.”

To enter to competition you can design your look from markets’ sourced materials or find a suitable fashionable muse and photograph him or her and submit it to the ‘Autumn/Winter Look 2013’ Flickr group by midnight on Sunday 25 August. Email street.markets@rbkc.gov.uk for more details.

The shortlisted photos will be displayed at flash fashion event on Saturday

7 September. Members of the public will be able to vote for their favourite entry between 10am and 2.30pm before the winner and runners-up are announced at 3pm.

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Adam Corbally - Stay the right side of business's Smoke and Mirrors !

Well, I’m sure that the gorgeous weather has brought out the customers and with it some unwelcome competition.

I personally like competition, it makes you up your game and brings out the best in businesses, although the best person to compete against is yourself by asking yourself the simple question: ‘Can anyone else be doing something to threaten my business?’

If the answer is ‘yes’, then why aren’t you doing it instead?

I saw the new movie about a criminal gang of illusionists, Now You See Me, recently where the ‘magic’ is keeping the victim close and thinking they are looking at the trick when the trick is happening elsewhere. It’s the same in business, you have to keep the competition close and focused on what you are doing while all the time working on a new plan to develop the business further, without them knowing until it is too late. In this way you get to use your existing brand and overheads you already have in place to launch a new product or service, while the competition would have to start from scratch and take a much bigger risk.

Now take the tragic example of Blockbuster, who must be wishing they had remained one step ahead of the competition in the shape of LoveFilm or Netflix, who have cornered the online presence for film rentals. The key is never to let your business get complacent no matter how big you get. This is a technology driven fast changing business world we live in today, so we all have to be thinking ‘what next, where’s the next big thing I can tap into that is in line with my existing business?’ Comet, too, would have wished they had established a strong online presence in their heydays before all the competition got a head start on them.

It may be a cliché, but if we do what we have always done, we only get what we always have and, these days, that’s just not good enough. Another good example of creating you own competition to stay ahead of you rivals is the Independent newspaper, which set up the cheaper tabloid form of itself, the ‘i’. This new product has largely made up for flagging sales with the parent broadsheet offering. The Daily Mail, too, was quick to exploit the growth of online content provision by getting in early and investing heavily to become a major global player in this sector while other UK newspapers, which sold more hard copies than the Mail, are lagging behind in the digital market.

Online continues to grow apace and I find myself doing more transactions through my mobile phone than any other way and consumers are increasingly doing this. By exploring the chinks in your armour you can head off potential threats to your business before the rivals spot the potential. We all need to sit down and take a hard look at what would pose the biggest challenge to our businesses, both today and looking to the future.

So whether its introducing a new line to our stalls? delivery service? putting together that well overdue website? or maybe even bringing in that direct debit machine you have always talked about? it’s vital for us traders to keep exploring ways to raise the bar before someone else raises the bar for us!

The question is, what is stopping us from trying something new?

The answer, Ourselves.

You can catch up with my own brand at www.Adamcorbally.co.uk Twitter @TheAdamCorbally

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Nabma, the Voice of Local Authority Markets

Markets have been around for hundreds of years and it is right to acknowledge that the markets that existed in the middle ages are very different to many of the markets that exist today. Today we have some wonderful examples of modern market halls, markets situated in shopping malls and iconic market buildings. Against this background markets need to be considered in a different context. We are all aware of the classic definition of a market as being a concourse of buyers and sellers and this still applies to many hundreds of markets operating today, but many markets now operate with complex landlord and tenant arrangements with tenants enjoying legal protection. This raises the question of whether such arrangements actually fall with the classic definition of a market.

Some years ago we saw the Valuation Office embark upon a series of revaluations of market halls because they were satisfied that the shops/units in many market halls gave rise to a separate valuation status. A significant part of the argument used by the Valuation Office turned on the letting arrangements used by market operators and the degree of security given to traders. Thankfully the Valuation Office seems to have completed its list of target markets, but the aftermath of these revaluations are still being felt by some Nabma members.

On a different issue there has always been a general understanding that when a market hall is in receipt of a planning approval there is no need for a separate planning approval to be obtained when a shop/unit changes one use to another. However it seems the attitude of some planners on this issue is now changing and markets are coming under pressure to ensure that separate applications are made where, for example, the change is from general retail to hot food. The argument advanced by planners ancillary to the main retail use it will not give rise to a requirement for a separate planning approval. What is ancillary? Normally up to a ten per cent change will be viewed as ancillary. This means that market managers need to be aware of the impact of any detailed changes to the markets offer and be aware of the potential planning  consequences of such changes. It is important that you are conversant with the planning authority’s planning policies and objectives. Of course there are substantial benefits for both market operators and traders in providing security of tenure and ensuring that shops/units are covered by  proper letting arrangements, but just a word of caution, that market which you have known and referred to as such for many years might not be seen as a market within the classic definition that I mentioned at the beginning of this article.

While we are dealing with how markets are viewed by external agencies can I end by dealing with the position of markets/street traders and rating liability. This issue has arisen, at a meeting of the Association of London Markets, and I promised to follow up with the Valuation Office. It seems that the Valuation Office takes the view that markets, both indoor and outdoor, fall to be rateably assessed because of the powers that are used to establish markets but street trading is not normally viewed as being rateable assessed. There are a few street trading in pitches in London rateably assessed but they are very much an exception to the current approach. The Valuation Office uses the case of Newham LB V Hampsher (Valuation Officer) May 1970 as a basis for taking this view. Here Newham issued street trading licences in respect of Rathbone Street Market and the Lands Tribunal held that the market was not in beneficial occupation. Whatever views one might have on the issues addressed in this case there are no plans to change this approach, which must be a great relief to the many London Boroughs that operate street markets via street trading licences. There are some of the most famous markets in the country operated in London. They promote themselves as markets not as street trading activities. However they are not regarded as markets for rating purposes. Perhaps another reason for again looking at the classic definition of a market?

When is a market not a market? Perhaps thats something we should debate at the Nabma Conference. Are you coming? 22nd-24th September at the Imperial Hotel, Torquay. You will be very welcome.

Graham Wilson OBE 
Chief Executive,
Nabma

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