9:50am Saturday 6th March 2010
By Tom Moseley
SHOCKED stallholders were yesterday served with legal notices to quit the current Blackburn Market as its replacement was confirmed.
Traders hit out at what they perceive to be ‘strong-arm’ tactics of the council as they were threatened with legal action.
Extra market security was drafted in as a precaution, with emotions running high as long-serving traders were told they had 12 months to quit, or face a court order.
The council also gave three months’ notice that a discount which had allowed existing trad-ers to fill 80 empty stalls at low cost was to end.
Remaining other empty stalls at the 1964 market were taped off.
Council chiefs said they had to carry out the actions as part of the legal process of serving not-ice to quit.
Market traders’ chairman Chris Appleby said the measures would make the last year of the current market bleak.
He said: “You will be looking at a three-day market that is more than 50per cent empty.
“From the council’s point of view, it will have precisely the desired effect: to shut this place down as soon as possible.
“It is a sad day, firstly because we thought there would be negotiation. Secondly, because now it’s blatantly obvious peop-le’s employment will end in 12 months. And thirdly, because it’s the end of a lifestyle, and the end of an era for Blackburn.”
Yesterday morning letters from the council’s solicitors, Beach-croft LLP, were given to each trader. It said there were ‘serious structural problems’ with the current building, off Ainsworth Street, and that the ‘only econ-omic solution’ was to dismantle the roof first and then knock down the building.
Information packs were also handed out on the new complex, confirming rent increases of up to 60per cent.
Traders were also offered a sum of money in compensation for the enforced end of their lease.
Butcher Martin Smith said the £2,000 he was offered to vacate his FA Smith stall, run by his family since 1959, was ‘an insult’.
He said: “If I had worked at the town hall for that amount of time I would be handsomely rewarded.”
On the new market, he said: “They way they have priced it, I can’t see how anyone could move there.”
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