From Councillor Zoë Garbett:
Street markets are a vital part of Hackney’s past, present and future. Street markets provide low-cost and culturally specific items as well as being vibrant places for socialising and community connection. Street markets are made what they are by the traders who work in them who are able to work as independent, sole traders.
Hackney Council are currently consulting on their market fees and charges - with drastic increases being proposed.
Some traders need low fees and charges so that they can provide low-cost items to low-income communities. I’ve heard from traders that the proposed changes will make this really hard for them to do.
The council’s consultation is an opportunity for you to have your say by December 31st. The consultation has a very open question “Please let us know your comments on the proposed Hackney markets, street trading and shop front fees and charges?”
We have complied some points below from discussions with market traders which you may like to feed into the consultation. Key points:
- Waste collection charges are stated to have increased by over 140% - this is a huge increase and there is not enough information in the consultation to explain the reason for such a huge increase. I understand from traders that all alternatives have not been explored and that for markets such as Ridley Road, the number of traders producing a lot of waste (e.g. fruit & veg) has decreased - making it unclear why an increase in the charges for waste collection is necessary. The consultation should be halted until all options have been explored and detailed justification is provided for this increase.
- Plans to hand down electricity charges to traders - this is at the total price of £154,000, again there is little breakdown of how/where this energy is used - as I understand lights are only used in the winter months. We also need to see what steps have been taken to reduce energy consumption.
- Increased in storage chargers - the benchmarking shows that Hackney is the highest and not inline with other boroughs.
- Some of the charges for council administration increase significantly - we need to see a breakdown of the council’s market team staffing & budget to fully understand activities to be able to judge whether these charges are fair.
- Introducing a late payment penalty - this is not in line with an ethical debt collection approach and therefore I do not support it.
Given the information above, I do not feel residents are able to make an informed decision about these charges and I also do not think there is enough information about what alternatives the council has explored to bring down costs. Therefore, the consultation should be paused until this information is provided.
To justify continued cuts and increases in charges, the Labour Council and Labour Government say there's no money left and tell stories of financial black holes. But there's plenty of money in our economy. This is why Greens are calling for a wealth tax to fund public services. A wealth tax of 1% annually should be levied on assets above £10 million and of 2% on assets above £1bn. Only a tiny minority of people would pay this tax. And could generate more than £50bn. I am taking a motion to Hackney Council to call on the Mayor of Hackney to push for the Labour Government to stop pursuing austerity and implement a wealth tax to fund public services.
You have until December 31st to have your say on the Market Fees & Charges. You can access the consultation here: https://consultation.hackney.gov.uk/parking-markets/fac25-26/
