Examination of Witnesses (Questions 24
- 39)
MONDAY 2 MARCH 2009
DR SOPHIE
WATSON
Q24 Chair: Dr Watson, you have obviously
done a great deal of research about the role of markets. Can I
just ask you if you could very briefly summarise the headlines
on what your research has identified as a successful market in
terms of its community role?
Dr Watson: The focus of the research
was actually more looking at markets as public space and social
space and community space, rather than looking at the economic
role of markets. However, one of the things about markets is that
you cannot separate any of these questions out. In the end, a
market is not going to work successfully socially or as a community
space if it does not have a strong base in the economy, if it
does not have good products to sell. However, the main focus of
the research was to think about and look at which were the groups
in the community which were benefiting out of a market being in
a town. I imagine you are going to ask me some questions around
that. I will perhaps say some more then.
Q25 Chair: Did you find different
groups depending on the type of market?
Dr Watson: It is a very varied
picture, as Ann Coffey alluded to. I do not think it is quite
as straightforward as the picture that is coming across where
farmers' markets, specialist markets, are seen to be on the increase
and the old, traditional markets are in decline. It is not really
like that. Across the country there are many markets that are
still very viable that have been there for a long time, the kind
of markets particularly in country towns, for example, which still
pretty much serve the community. If you take a classic country
town where it has a market, say, on one or two days a week you
will find people mostly go to the market, more or less everyone.
The picture becomes much more varied when you start looking at
large metropolitan areas.
Q26 Chair: Is the variable factor
whether there is a big supermarket in the heart of whatever community
it is, or not?
Dr Watson: It is one factor. However,
one of the things I found was that even the question of a supermarket
is a variable factor, because if a supermarket is located in a
part of town which can draw people away from the market, particularly
certain groups of the population, the working population, who
can easily shop in a supermarket by parking after work and then
going to do their shopping, that kind of cohort of people will
not be going much to markets. If, however, the supermarket and
the market are quite closely intertwined spatially, for example,
somewhere like Milton Keynes, where you have a shopping centre
and the market right next door to each other, quite often people
will move between the market and the supermarket and the shops
around. So the physical proximity of a market to other retail
outlets can enhance the market. It slightly relates to the point
that was made before. If you have a conglomeration of shops and
markets all in one place, you might find people chop and change
between the two. Where supermarkets have been very detrimental
would be, giving an example from my research, somewhere like Ludlow,
where you have a central town, an old-fashioned market in the
centre, and then you have the supermarket on the edge. What you
find then is that it pulls away particularly the working population.
So it is a complex relationship.
Q27 Anne Main: Could I just ask you
about the size and shape of markets? We keep hearing about this
communal space. St Albans is my city. We have more of a ribbon
market, along through the street. Can I ask if you have done any
research into whether the number of stalls and the shape of the
market makes any difference?
Dr Watson: In terms of its success?
Q28 Anne Main: Yes, in terms of success.
Dr Watson: It depends, again,
on what the success is. I would say that that shape of market,
typically, the long street, is less likely to be a place where
people will throng for an extended period of time but even that
depends on how it is laid out. When you go to Ridley Road, you
will see that actually it is a very vibrant social space as well
as an economically successful market and that is a long street
but it has lots of different bits and pieces around it where people
can sit and chat and linger and so on. If it is simply a street
with pavements on either side, and that is it, you will find people
tend to just go in, do their shopping and leave. If it is in a
well laid out round or square shape, I think they work better,
or they seem to work better.
Q29 Anne Main: Are you saying, given
that there is a value in keeping a particular size or shape or
maintaining spaces, that within local decision-making on planning
or alterations of traffic flow or any of that, it could make an
enormous difference to how well that market space operates?
Dr Watson: Yes, it makes a huge
difference. I think the physical layout and the design of the
market space is something that local authorities could do a lot
more to enhance. Typically, as has been pointed out before, local
authorities have not tended to have markets in their view at all.
If you look at the picture across the country, local authority
markets are pretty much off the agenda. One of the reasons for
that is because local authorities often do not have somebody who
is in charge of the market at a senior level. They have tended
to be run by, for example, the person who runs the parking.
Q30 Anne Main: So more rent collecting
than actually management?
Dr Watson: It is very much seen
as a cash cow by many local authorities. The ones that see it
like that are the ones where the markets are in decline, typically.
Q31 Dr Pugh: Can I follow up on both
those very good points? First of all, on the spatial point, some
markets obviously are covered; you have to go into a building.
St John's market in Liverpool is quite a good example of that
and Southport is like that. Other markets you can drift through
while walking through the streets. Is there any sort of differential
degree of success nowadays for open markets as opposed to closed
markets? The second question I want to ask again follows through
what Anne Main has just said. In terms of local authorities still
running their own markets, are a large number of them now offloading
these markets as not part of their core business? If so, is this
a growing trend?
Dr Watson: On the first question,
I think it would be true to say that the seasonality of markets
is very much related to the issue of covered markets. Typically,
those that have no cover, which would probably be the vast majority
of markets, really struggle through the winter months. Some authorities
have come to quite clever arrangements to sort that out, for example,
in Rotherham, where they have these sail-type umbrella covered
markets, in fact, where you provide some kind of protection for
the markets.
Q32 Dr Pugh: So the more sustainable
ones are the ones in permanent buildings with a cover—is
that right?
Dr Watson: Yes, or some of them
have an inside and an outside. Up north that is quite a common
form of market, with a covered market and an outside market. The
ones that have tried to deal with this aspect of the weather,
which quite a few of them have done, have put in a kind of canvas
sail-type cover. They seem to be very good. The ones that do not
have that, some of them manage fine because they are so successful
for other reasons. For example, again, taking Ludlow, it is a
successful market because a lot of tourists go to Ludlow because
it is a very nice little town, so it manages but, if you look
at it in the winter months, the numbers are very much more down
than in the summer months. Most market traders make considerably
more income in the good weather in the way that we have markets.
That is a huge issue. Your second point was about the local authority's
role. No, there is not a trend towards local authorities offloading
markets, or not a very substantial trend. Some markets are run
by private corporations but I think the trend in local authorities
has been more to ignore markets. I think that has been a more
typical trend.
Q33 Dr Pugh: So there is no trend
towards more proactive management?
Dr Watson: I would like to answer
that question because, again, in terms of markets that are successful,
it is not just farmers' markets and specialist markets that are
successful. There are a great many markets that are successful
because the council or somebody within the council has decided
to embrace the local market and have turned the market around
in five years.
Q34 Chair: Can you give us some examples?
Dr Watson: Yes, Manchester, for
example. The Committee will be calling the manager from that market
as a witness later in the inquiry. It seems to me that if somebody
comes in who has a strategic vision, who pulls together the right
constituent parts that make a market, because the problem with
markets is precisely—again, it came up earlier—that
there are so many different interests at stake. There is the economic
side, the transport side, the design side, the social side, and
these parts of the council do not talk together very much. Neither
do they at national government level, I would not have thought.
So it falls between many stools. The markets that have managed
to turn themselves around have been where somebody has come in
and pulled together the different constituent parts with a strategic
vision. That would be true for Bradford, that would be true for
Manchester, and it is certainly true for Leicester. There are
a considerable number of markets around the country that have
reversed this trend of decline and in the last 10 years have managed
to move forward very successfully.
Q35 Anne Main: Briefly, on crime
in markets, anecdotally, there is the thought in St Albans and
other markets that markets attract visitors, they also attract
people who prey on visitors. Do you agree with that and, if you
do, do you think markets should be given additional help to ensure
that it is a safe trading place for them and for visitors to the
market?
Dr Watson: I found very little
evidence of it. I think it rather depends on the market. Camden
Lock market is a very high crime spot, mainly because it attracts
a lot of tourists, so they tend to be carrying handbags with lots
of money in. In the local markets on the whole I found very little
evidence of crime. In fact, it was hard to get anybody to talk
about it. There is a bit of crime on the side of the traders in
terms of selling certain kinds of goods but if you mean things
like pick-pocketing and so on, no, I did not come across much
of that—no more than you would find in a supermarket or
any other street—in fact, probably in some ways less so
because markets are quite well surveyed actually. Market traders
keep a good eye out for what is going on. This is something I
would like to make some emphasis on as well, that the role of
market traders in markets is a very crucial aspect of whether
a market is successful or not.
Q36 Andrew George: You mentioned
some potentially criminal activity on the part of market traders
themselves? What: they were selling on the side? You did not elaborate
on that.
Dr Watson: There is always this.
It seems that electronic goods are the things that always come
up.
Q37 Andrew George: To what extent
has your research delved into that? Is that more the case with
market traders than it would be with other traders? Is there a
greater preponderance of that type of activity happening, with
illegal goods trading on the side?
Dr Watson: No, I do not think
any more than you would find in other low-cost retail outlets.
I think they are pretty much of the same kind of nature as certain
kinds of shops.
Q38 Anne Main: People do not always
sell things on markets, of course. Quite often you will get charities
working on markets and you will even get political groups or pressure
groups working in markets. Have you looked at that aspect of it,
in terms of informing the public about campaigns and things going
on?
Dr Watson: Some markets are really
successful at that. Again, talking about Rotherham, it is quite
an interesting market because it has a two-layer building. On
the top layer of the old market building are all the local community
organisations. It has Age Concern and all those kinds of things.
That seems to be extremely successful. Quite a few of those big
metropolitan towns have that, and I think that is an important
role in terms of community cohesion as well.
Q39 Chair: Can we just clarify? When
you are talking about that example in Rotherham and Age Concern,
is that an Age Concern stall that is selling things?
Dr Watson: No, that is a little
shop.
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