“We don’t feel we’ve been properly heard. They’ve listened to us, but they are not hearing what we are saying”
St Nicholas Market trader Lynn Hanby, who runs Aardvark arts and crafts, with a petition against increases in rents that has been signed by thousands(Image: PAUL GILLIS / Reach PLC)
Market stall holders and street food businesses at Bristol’s iconic St Nick’s Market say they are facing a battle for survival, as city council bureaucrats want to hike the rents to extract another quarter of a million pounds a year from the venue. Thousands have signed a petition calling on the council to think again, and the stallholder leading the campaign said she and the other businesses are ‘overwhelmed’ by the show of support from people in the city.
Lynn Hanby said if the rent hikes and overhaul of the system proposed by Bristol City Council officers goes through, it will ‘put many stallholders out of business and change the entire nature of the market’ forever.
The council has been involved in a ten-month back and forth consultation process with St Nick’s Market since the end of last year, but Bristol Live understands an impasse has been reached, which sparked Lynn and other traders to launch a petition and a campaign to save the market.
Bristol Live reported back in December that the council was first proposing a new system of collecting rents based on taking 15 per cent of each stall’s turnover. That proposal met fierce resistance from the market stallholders, so a second proposal was made by the council – to make the system fairer by setting rents based solely on the square foot area each stall takes up.
“We’re all for making the rents fairer, but the issue is the council are using this change to take more money from St Nick’s,” said Lynn, who has run the Aardvark arts and crafts stall for 34 years. “At first they said they wanted this process to bring an extra £115,000 a year to the council, and then they moved the goalposts and said they want it to increase the amount the council receives by £265,000,” she added.
St Nicks Market’s Glass Arcade(Image: PAUL GILLIS / Reach PLC)
St Nick’s Market attracts a whopping 3.7 million visitors every year, features in pretty much every Bristol tourist video blog, and is regularly cited in all the ‘spend a day in Bristol’ travel guides. It has three distinct areas – a traditional market stall set-up in the main Exchange Hall building, a Covered Market that is mainly services and retail and the Glass Arcade where the famous street food stalls and businesses are.
Over the decades, market managers have filled vacant stalls charging different rents, so there is a wide disparity in all areas with some stallholders paying more than others for similar spots.
“We welcome the idea of levelling it all out, but this should be done fairly in a way which keeps things affordable,” said Lynn. “The first idea to simply take 15 per cent of turnover would have really badly affected the street food stalls, which have a high turnover but low profit margins.
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“The second idea to make it based on square foot would have hit those street food stalls with seating areas and the cafes. The issue is that the council are using this as a way to take more money. The market already makes the council money – they get £55,000 more in rents every year than it costs the council to run the place, so we really don’t understand why they need to raise that to £265,000,” Lynn added.
She said the council’s proposals would mean many stallholders go out of business. “Under the new proposals, one or two would see a rent reduction, the average would be a 40 per cent increase, and some businesses would be paying 100 per cent more rent, or more,” she said. “Many businesses which are hit hardest simply won’t survive and the council are not hearing that. That’s going to change the nature of St Nick’s,” she added.
St Nicholas Market trader Lynn Hanby, who runs Aardvark arts and crafts, with a petition against increases in rents that has been signed by thousands(Image: PAUL GILLIS / Reach PLC)
Lynn and the other market traders said their anger is focused on the way the council has conducted the consultations. “We’ve had phase one, which was the idea of a turnover percentage. We moved on to phase two, but in that, they made sure there was no way of agreeing to the idea of making the rents fairer through a simple square foot area system, without also agreeing at the same time to the massive rent hikes.
“We don’t feel we’ve been properly heard. They’ve listened to us, but they are not hearing what we are saying,” added Lynn. “They are not really valuing St Nick’s for its contribution to the city and all the tourists it brings in.
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“Bristol is based on creativity and diversity and St Nick’s is a little microcosm of that. We are paying our way, we make the council a surplus, so why they need to take more than a quarter of a million out of us, we don’t know,” she added.
Paper petitions have been gaining thousands of signatures this week, and an online one has also passed 1,000. They now hope the support will secure a debate at City Hall at which they will be able to put their points across to the councillors themselves.
“We’d just like to work with them on this and come up with a solution that everyone is happy with, but they don’t seem to want to do that,” said Lynn. “We have been overwhelmed by the support from the people of Bristol. It’s been wonderful to see so many people signing the petition and saying they support us,” she added.
Queues in the Glass Arcade(Image: Bristol Live)What the council says
Councillor Andrew Brown, Chair of the Economy and Skills Committee, said: “We have been working with the St Nicholas Market licence holders to understand their views on how we can introduce a new licence fee model that will mean the market will be financially sustainable.
“It has been over a decade since the last fee review and our aim is to bring fees in line with equivalent UK markets and develop a model that is fair to the traders and fair to the city.
“Two phases of consultation were held with licence holders in March and June which informed detailed proposals for a new licence fee model at the market.
“Feedback from the second phase of consultation was used to inform the decision to introduce the proposed new fee model in stages over five years, allowing business owners to adjust gradually and have time to prepare. Adjustments could include changing their footprint in the market, for example, and the team are happy to engage with traders on a one-to-one level to help traders adapt. Proposed fee increases will vary across the market from 5 to 20 per cent per year.
“I have also been clear that the situation should be kept under review, that the service should seek to find and expand other income streams, that funds should be reinvested into the market to improve its facilities, and that the Council’s property team should make better use of the upstairs space of the Corn Exchange to both increase income and footfall.
“When we meet later this month the Economy and Skills Policy Committee will consider all responses to the consultation before making a final decision on the proposals,” he added.
Back in December, a document outlining the options was reported on by Bristol Live. In it, a council officer explained the problems they were trying to sort out.
Andrew Brown was elected for Hengrove and Whitchurch in 2021(Image: Supplied)
The report said: “The Glass Arcade has the lowest fees but this is the most lucrative element of the market, with 75 per cent of the 3.7 million visits in 2023. It is not reasonable for the most profitable element of the market to be charged the least.
“There is scope to invest in the market to provide better infrastructure for the current traders, through operational improvements and more effective emergency repairs. It may also be possible to put on events and night markets. However, this will require additional investment which is not justifiable when income targets are not being achieved.
“It appears that the current low fees are resulting in a low turnover of businesses within the market. Ensuring there are regular opportunities for new traders to take up, create and grow new market businesses is important to ensure a mixed and changing offer, encouraging customers to return again and again.”