Market trader has it summed up
FURTHER to previous letters concerning the council’s plan to move the market traders out of their hall, it would seem relevant to examine the financial aspects of such an upheaval.
Let’s do the maths:
Market Hall income from traders’ rents (including Sundays): circa £300,000+
Profit according to district council; £35,000
Running expenses: £265,000+
Now, hands up all those ratepayers who think running costs like these are reasonable.
Let’s count the hands: Michael Rook and the Tory councillors have their hands up.
That’s 20 votes for the motion. The district ratepayers have by and large kept their hands down. That’s 40,500 against the motion.
Of course, these figures are only a rough guide, but you get the gist.
Now, if we add in the stated proposed £50,000 a year rent from a ‘major retailer’, deduct the £35,000 market profit, and you will see the council will have an extra £15,000 a year to upgrade their offices (council estimates are two to four million pounds to upgrade).
You may feel that this will take some time (centuries, in fact!).
Again, the figures are just rough estimates, but you get the gist.
Naturally the council will dispute this time-scale, because they are planning to use £2,000,000 of their reserves to speed things up a little. Yes, this would make the scheme ‘self-financing’ if one uses council logic.
Leaving aside the mathematics, let’s do the ethics:
The question is: Is it ethical, or indeed moral, to destroy the livelihoods of the market traders (some of whom have been trading in the town’s market for 30 years or so), just so the councillors can have swish offices?
Let us vote: Oh dear, same result as before: 20 votes for the motion, 40,500 against.
Lewis Dunkley,
(17 years trading as Black Cat Antiques in the Market Hall),
Fir Tree Close,
Wigston.
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Friday 18 May 2012
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