The Victoria Centre Market is being boarded up but five remaining traders are refusing to leave.
The market boasted hundreds of traders across two floors when it moved to the Victoria Centre in the 1970s; however, just three shops and two cafés now remain.
Nottingham City Council, which leases and manages the market, has now started boarding up much of the site.
It says this is to reduce anti-social behaviour in unused areas and cut running costs.
Sharon Manning, who runs Aladdin’s Cave alongside Stephen Taylor, said she believes the council is attempting to make the market look derelict to force the remaining traders out.
Hoardings are going up in the Victoria Centre Market
“They started boarding up last week,” she said. “The guys are actually still here boarding up.
“We’ve actually been busier because more people are coming in to make sure we are OK – and they are buying stuff while they are here – even though it does look a bit of an eyesore.
“The council just wants to make it look derelict and like we are not open. But, like I said, it is having the opposite effect because more people are coming in to make sure we are still here and still trading.”
Suzanne Anderson, of Gemini Jewellers, said she is refusing to leave, and claims compensation offers are being based on the size of shops rather than customer loyalty.
“We’ve been here as a family-run business for 80 years,” she said.
The former market view
“My uncle worked here until he was 90 years of age and would be turning in his grave to see what is going on at the moment. It is disgusting.
“This is the heart of the centre, a community for everybody to come, sit down and talk to their friends, and have a drink around people.
“They’ve put up these boards to, what, make it look like it is derelict and that we are shut down? People come to me saying, oh, you’re still open? I say yes, we are not going anywhere.”
A number of shoppers also gave a show of support.
One passer-by shouted, “Keep going, keep the market open,” while shopper Jackie Ellis said: “There is no heart left in Nottingham now.
“Everywhere you go, we’ve been over to Leeds, you have a market there, Birmingham has two markets. Everywhere has got markets. It is just sad.”
The council first announced it wanted to give up the site in 2022 – with its lease on the market expected to have cost it £39m over the next 50 years.
The authority said it has already been forced to subsidise the market for nearly a decade, ever since the shopping centre’s previous owners, intu, put service charges up.
The council paid an independent firm, Bruton Knowles, around £25,000 to come up with fair offers of compensation for all the businesses, but traders said things collapsed when the authority concluded offers were too much.
Then, in September 2024, it said it had started terminating legal agreements with traders who had break clauses or “significant rent arrears”.
Towards the end of last year, the council began formally notifying traders to leave.
Most traders were given an exit date of 31 March 2025.
A council spokesperson said: “We’ve taken the decision to board off long-vacant sections of the Victoria Indoor Market as part of our ongoing work to manage the space responsibly.
“This step supports efforts to reduce anti-social behaviour in unused areas and to bring down unnecessary running costs – particularly energy consumption from lighting and heating empty spaces.
“The trading areas remain fully open and accessible as usual.”
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