Will street markets survive through 21st century?

Former Member

Part of the British way of life has always been having street stalls available for buying groceries, textiles, sweets, veg etc at a slightly lower price with the lower overheads. Is there much of a future for regulated town street markets? The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has commissioned a study to look into the viability and future of having market stalls trading on London's streets

Former Member

Walthamstow market aint what it used to be...

Former Member

gotta admit street markets have decreased quite a bit where i live. alot the stalls have tried getting shops to keep their buisness going

Former Member

sepumseeme wrote: »

Walthamstow market aint what it used to be...

I have childhood memories of going there

Cobra wrote: »

gotta admit street markets have decreased quite a bit where i live. alot the stalls have tried getting shops to keep their buisness going

discount stores like pound shops and low cost supermarkets have zapped some of market traders business

Former Member

Stockport in Cheshire ....a market for 800nyears plus ...gone.
The traders cannot compete with Asda for cheap jeans towels etc.
More choice ...thats a fucking bollox slogan.
Family cafes?
Dissapearing fast ...almost gone in fact but don't worry ...next year most shops will be boarded up.
Mc donnies and othe places like them ...will be closing fast.
So no mc jobs.
Don't believe me?
Then you aint looking at the figures.
Consumption is plumeting ...alcohol ...clothes .cars ...you name it.
Even the mc jobs will not be here next year.
Laugh all you like ...I have the figures.
When these places are boarded up with to let signs on them ...early next year ....think of dumb old me telling you.
The real economic collapse hasn't even started yet!

Former Member

morrocan roll wrote: »

Stockport in Cheshire ....a market for 800nyears plus ...gone.
The traders cannot compete with Asda for cheap jeans towels etc.
More choice ...thats a fucking bollox slogan.
Family cafes?
Dissapearing fast ...almost gone in fact but don't worry ...next year most shops will be boarded up.
Mc donnies and othe places like them ...will be closing fast.
So no mc jobs.
Don't believe me?
Then you aint looking at the figures.
Consumption is plumeting ...alcohol ...clothes .cars ...you name it.
Even the mc jobs will not be here next year.
Laugh all you like ...I have the figures.
When these places are boarded up with to let signs on them ...early next year ....think of dumb old me telling you.
The real economic collapse hasn't even started yet!

Is the decline of McDonald's and falling consumption of alcohol a bad thing?

Clothes and cars are not really consumables, clothes can last a long time and so can cars so I'm not sure what point you are making there.

I agree that small businesses are under a lot of pressure in the current economic situation and that many have already been forced to close. I don't there is any denying that this is at least in part down to the supermarkets making full use of their economies of scale and cash reserves to survive the economic crisis at the expense of local businesses. However, I for one will buy goods that are little bit more expensive from local businesses if they are better quality. I won't buy knock off rubbish from a market trader just because they are in my local area, but I will buy quality goods from them.

There was a programme on the BBC recently about how much food is wasted in this country and how it is largely due to people throwing away perfectly edible food that doesn't look exactly right. I think this part of the reason local businesses struggle in this country, people want to buy a bag of bananas from Tesco where each banana looks exactly the same and has the same sticker on it, I think people are afraid of buying goods that don't look a certain way.

Former Member

Probably not. Well there will be, but mainly in a tourist capacity in traditional towns that build their image on local shops and market traders. In many towns, I think even the town centre will become a thing of the past, replaced instead by business parks on the outskirts. Councils are removing the opportunities for any small, independent businesses. Who is seriously going to take a chance on opening a business that size? What they need to do (which I think is being experimented with) is to have small properties alongside the big ones in these retail parks. But even then, I fear the rent will be too high for anyone to make a real go of it. I'm currently in Saigon, where every road is just shop after shop (or restaurant). The reason they can do this is that all of these buildings are privately-owned. There's no mortgage to pay, no landlords cut, so they only have to make enough money to live on. As a result, they are cheaper than the supermarkets (or big foreign restaurant chains), and local businesses are literally spilling out onto the streets. They can also do it because everyone rides motorbikes here, so parking isn't a problem, but that's another story. In the UK, councils set these ridiculous rent levels, when it would be far better for the local economy to set lower rental levels, and have more of the units in town centres taken up. But far better still if more businesses owned the buildings they operated in. But that's a far more difficult one to achieve, especially since we've moved to a plan where we live in one place, shop in another place and work in a third, rather than the three being intertwined.

Former Member

adogwithsunglasses wrote: »

................... I for one will buy goods that are little bit more expensive from local businesses if they are better quality. I won't buy knock off rubbish from a market trader just because they are in my local area, but I will buy quality goods from them.

I'm same mentality too- if enough people are the same they will stay competitive and survive