Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40
- 49)
MONDAY 2 MARCH 2009
DR SOPHIE
WATSON
Q40 Chair: But it is selling things?
Dr Watson: No, giving out advice
and giving out leaflets. Other markets do what you are suggesting.
Quite often the local authority will give over some stalls to
local groups. I think that is one of their important roles in
terms of making a community, that different kinds of things can
happen relatively cheaply in one place. Normally people tend to
rush past such things in the main High Street, whereas when it
is in the market people are more likely to stop and have a look
and perhaps talk to somebody about what is going on.
Q41 John Cummings: Dr Watson, your
research concludes that the market provision in any one locality
needs to fit with and be responsive to the surrounding community
needs, socioeconomic and demographic profile and local conditions.
What lessons can be drawn for public policy from this research
and who would learn the lessons?
Dr Watson: It is a question of
joined-up thinking. If you have a market in an area which is low-income
or perhaps there is a high preponderance of people on benefits
or a high preponderance of older people, you can look at those
demographics around England in most towns. There is quite a lot
of difference, say, between somewhere like Lowestoft and somewhere
like Brighton, two seaside towns but with very different sociodemographics.
It would seem to me that if you were strategically thinking about
the kind of market to place in each of those places, you would
be going for quite a different kind of market. Craft stalls and
that sort of thing are not going to go down very well; there is
not much point in putting them in an area that is a very low-income,
perhaps elderly population. When I say a demographic, it is a
question about thinking about what kind of market works in what
kind of place. That is the variation you have. Farmers' markets
are very successful, that is true, and especially the more upmarket
farmers' markets are much more successful in middle-class areas
than they are in poorer areas, because those products, organic
products, usually have to be more expensive and so you have to
think about the kind of market and the kind of people and place.
That is my point and that is where vision comes in.
Q42 John Cummings: Could you reasonably
expect that to come from central government or would this be notes
of guidance from the Department to those responsible for the licensing
arrangements?
Dr Watson: I think it would be
about talking about the kind of way in which you would encourage
certain kinds of traders into certain kinds of locations. In other
words, it would be worth thinking about, for example, in a very
multi-racial area, encouraging people who could start to sell
products that cannot be found elsewhere. There are a lot of markets
that are successful because they bring in, say, food products;
if there is a predominately Asian population, those kinds of food
products.
Q43 John Cummings: Who would do this?
Whose responsibility would it be?
Dr Watson: I think the responsibility
lies at the local government level. I think it is very difficult
for national government. You cannot prescribe. You can set out
guidelines, as Ann Coffey has said.
Q44 John Cummings: Do you think market
traders would look kindly on being lectured to by local government?
Dr Watson: I do not think it is
the market traders that are going to be lectured to, because most
market traders elect to be in a particular market themselves.
Q45 John Cummings: Do they not enter
into partnerships with the local authority as to who has stalls
and who does not have stalls?
Dr Watson: They vary on that.
Many market traders have an association and a chair, and usually
it is the chair of the market traders who negotiates some of the
local issues with the local authority. That is a very varied picture.
Some of those market associations are much stronger than others.
I do not think it is a question about being lectured to. I think
it is simply the argument that a good—I will give you an
example. They brought in a very proactive market trader in a market
in Camden for a while, Queen's Crescent market. He took a lot
of advice about how to change the market. It was a market in decline.
He went out very strategically. He realised he had a middle-class,
gentrified neighbourhood juxtaposed, so he brought in an Italian
delicatessen type stall. He realised also that he had a strong
Asian community so he brought in some people who cooked Asian
food on the site. He realised that people wanted fish because
there was not a fishmonger. He thought about all those things
and proactively went out and found people to run those stalls,
and those stalls came. Interestingly, when he stopped being there
doing that kind of work, the market returned to a market in a
state of decline. Watching that over a five-year period, you could
see precisely my point about how somebody with vision, thinking
through those kinds of larger issues, could make the market work.
Q46 Anne Main: Could I just ask one
question, and it is not meant to be facetious, but do you think
the Government ought to have a market stall in today's economic
climate, where people who have worries about benefit entitlement,
tax, housing, jobs? Do you think there would be some value in
government getting more in touch with the people and perhaps participating
in markets?
Dr Watson: I think that is a terrific
idea. No, I think it is a terrific idea because markets operate
as a space where people actually have time, usually, and it could
be that that would be a way in which certain kinds of communication
could take place. This gets back to the question of national agenda,
obesity, and all those kinds of issues.
Q47 Mr Betts: Markets, I think, are
recognised by the Communities and Local Government Department
as being important in the social exclusion agenda, in terms of
offering a variety of different shopping opportunities in town
and district centres, and city centres indeed. Do you think however
that CLG is still missing a bit of a trick in that it has not
really given markets the prominence they could play in terms of
regeneration? I understand markets have not been considered as
a key site for intervention within CLG policy. Do you think there
is more that can be done there? Do you think CLG has only gone
halfway towards recognising the importance of markets?
Dr Watson: Absolutely more can
be done. I would say that very little has been done so far. It
seems to me that a lot of community agendas hinge on a market.
The question of public space, for example. It is a strange thing
in a way because we design public spaces like parks and so on,
or think about public spaces like community centres, but the market
just exists already as a public space where communities interact.
So, yes, in terms of those kinds of issues. In terms of people
keeping an eye on each other—and I do not mean in the surveillance
way—market traders typically really look after their customers.
It is an interesting role that they take on quite seriously themselves.
They keep an eye out, if you like, for their customers and often
provide advice or support. Lots of market traders, for example,
will take a box of oranges back to some old lady's house who cannot
come and get her oranges. It is surprising how much they do that.
I think this is something that is going to be difficult to put
into policy but if you talk about the way in which market traders
take responsibility for the community, I think in many areas they
do. So yes, I think it is a missed opportunity in all sorts of
ways.
Q48 Mr Betts: One other possibility—and
Anne Main has raised I think quite an interesting idea about government
presence—is post office presence. There is an example in
my own constituency where we had a post office closure because
of lack of adequate building, as it was then. With the local councillors
and the Post Office we worked with the city council, and identified
the opportunity, because a local businessmen came along as a sub
postmaster, and we now have a market stall converted into a post
office in the market in Crystal Peaks in my constituency, which
seems an interesting way forward, because in terms of the profile
of people who use the market, it is often people on lower incomes
and often the elderly, they benefit from having a post office
on hand. It is also bringing people into the market to trade as
well. I just wondered whether that has been looked at as a policy
possibility.
Dr Watson: That is a very innovative
policy, I think, and a terrifically positive idea. Interestingly,
I know the story the other way round, which is that a number of
markets had post offices and the post office went and the market
was badly affected. I think that would be very creative thinking
to do that.
Q49 Mr Betts: Richard Jackson, the
sub-postmaster, has been important in achieving that but, of course,
it is a post office which opens on Sundays as well, which is quite
a novel idea.
Dr Watson: It is a very creative
idea, a terrific idea.
Chair: Thank you very much indeed.
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