Hackney Markets, Street Trading and Shop Front Fees and Charges 2020-2021

Overview

Why are you being consulted?

We are proposing to update street and shop front trading fees and charges, which were last updated in April 2016. This is because since then, the running costs of our markets, which include waste management, infrastructure costs and storage costs, have increased significantly. We are proposing to update charges in April 2020 (subject to this consultation) to ensure they are fair and transparent, and to ensure our markets are self-funding by the 2021/22.

This consultation details the proposed changes to fees and charges for permanent and temporary traders across Ridley Road, Broadway, Hoxton, Chatsworth Road, Well Street and Kingsland Markets, Shop Fronts and other miscellaneous sites. These changes are different depending on the running costs of each site, so please read the information and proposed changes for your site carefully.

What are the proposals?

Ridley Road Market

At Ridley Road Market, the Council is currently paying an additional £80k in increased waste charges and a further £30k in infrastructure maintenance costs, since we last updated fees and charges in 2016. The proposed changes to the fees for trading at Ridley Road Market, detailed below, would allow Ridley Road to become self-funding during 2020/21, whilst ensuring the charges are fair and take into account the added cost of dealing with food waste. We are proposing the following changes to charges at Ridley Road Market:

• A 12% increase for both permanent and temporary traders in zones 1&2, rising to 14% for fruit and vegetables and street food traders (rounded up to the nearest £)
• Following a successful trial whereby fees for zone 3 were reduced to increase pitch occupancy, increasing occupancy to 50%, a 14% reduction in both permanent and temporary traders within zone 3 is proposed, making Ridley Road the cheapest 6 day a week market in London to trade in.
• Introduced in 2014, Friday and Saturday only licences are proving detrimental to the financial sustainability of the market, allowing traders to monopolise high footfall pitches whilst only trading for 2 days per week, thus making it difficult to sell the pitches to other prospective traders. We propose to increase the fees for this type of licence by 20% (rounded to the nearest £) for existing licence holders to reflect this, and to remove this type of licence for new or existing licence holders who wish to apply for a variation to their licence.

Hoxton Market

Hoxton Market is operated as a street food trading site Monday to Friday and as a full, designated street market on Saturdays, and the fees and charges to trade are aligned accordingly. To cover the rising cost of waste management (particularly food waste) and to ensure charges are fair, the following changes are proposed:

• An increase of £2 per week for all permanent Mon-Sat traders (or £2 a day for Saturday only permanent traders.)
• Temporary fees increase for all traders of £2 per day, Mon-Sat (with the exception of Fridays which are currently charged at the same rate as Saturdays. These will be brought into line with those for Mon-Thur, due to the similar commercial opportunities that they present.)
• Temporary fees increase of £2 a day on Saturdays for all traders

Broadway Market

Hackney Council assumed full control of Broadway Market in late 2018, since then the occupancy of the market has been increased by 47% to full capacity. Fees currently stand at £14 a day for non food traders and £15 a day for fruit and vegetable/street food traders which makes it the cheapest market in Hackney to trade from on a Saturday. The cost of a stall/gazebo provided to trade in, is currently £30 which is added to the daily trading fee.

Current pitch fees do not reflect the true cost to the Council of running Broadway Market, which includes providing a full markets management team, market development service (marketing, Licencing and
trader recruitment, markets strategy delivery), two onsite market inspectors, enforcement and waste management. Proposed increases to fees are detailed in the third column of table 5 below:

Under these proposals, fees at Broadway Market would still remain the cheapest compared to other similar markets, as Chart 2 below shows.

Chatsworth Road Market

Hackney Council took full control of Chatsworth Road Market in April 2018, purchasing the existing stalls and gazebos for £7.5k whilst also taking on the lease of the storage area for £12k per annum and the stall hire crew for £350 per week without passing on these costs to traders. Since taking control, pitch
occupancy has increased by 61% and the market currently trades at 83% occupancy.

Current pitch fees do not reflect the true cost to the Council of running Chatsworth Road Market, which includes providing a market development service (including social media marketing and trader recruitment), waste services, a full inspector service for this growing market and stall hire and assembly. Whilst only temporary licences are available for the market, there has been a high demand for permanent ones, which would help to grow the market to full occupancy and provide a fixed income to help the
market become self-funding. The changes to fees and charges detailed in Table 6 are proposed:

Kingsland Market

Relaunched in July 2019, the market has seen a steady decline of regular traders from 25 to only 6, and as the market does not have the natural footfall of other nearby markets or a specialised status it is proposed that fees for both permanent and temporary traders are reduced to reflect this whilst also encouraging increased demand for pitches.

Miscellaneous sites

The demand from traders for miscellaneous sites across the borough is increasing rapidly, with a 70% growth in pitch bookings during 2018/19 and continued growth during 2019/20.

Currently there is a flat fee to trade per day, regardless of the location of the site or the commercial opportunities that it presents, and this does not reflect the true cost to the Council of providing waste management services and a satellite markets officer to manage the sites or take into account the varying
commercial opportunities afforded by them.

It is proposed that a new, three tier pricing structure is introduced based on the map below, with City, Primary and Secondary site price bands as per Table 8.

Events

Hackney Council is being asked to support an increasing number of individual local events with market stalls that need organisation, licensing, management and disposal of waste.

Currently there is a flat fee to trade per day, regardless of the location or type of event (with the exception of the Hackney Carnival), which does not reflect the true cost to the Council or the varying commercial opportunities that events present for traders.

It is proposed to make the changes detailed in Table 9 to take into account the associated costs of food and non-food traders (especially around waste management) and the commercial opportunities that events provide.

Market and Street Trading Administration Fees

Fast track application fees

The current service level agreement (SLA) states that licence applications will be dealt with within 7-10 working days, however there has been a significant and sustained increase in short notice applications for licences to be issued within one or two days. This is placing stress on the service and requires significant resource management.

It is proposed to introduce a ‘fast track’ application fee of £100 to cover the cost of dealing with applications with deadlines of less time than stated within the SLA.

Arrears letters

It is proposed to introduce a charge of £5 for the issue of arrears letters to traders to cover the administrative cost to the Council.

Enforcement and revocation letters

It is proposed to introduce a charge of £10 for the issue of each enforcement or revocation letter to cover the administrative cost to the council.

Street Markets Storage Containers

The markets service currently provide storage containers at Hoxton Street, Well Street and Ridley Road markets, charging £50 a month for 10ft containers and £100 a month for 20ft containers.

When benchmarked against like for like storage in the borough, with an average 20ft container costing £650 per month in other storage areas such as covered markets or £300 in the indoor market storage area on Ridley Road, the current fees for storage are very significantly cheaper and do not cover the cost to the
Council of renting the containers or the business rates for the land that they are stored on. To enable the Council to break even on these costs during the year 2019/20, the following increase in fees are proposed:

Shop Fronts

Fees for Shop Front trading have remained unchanged since 2010 and have been based on three bandings, as detailed in tables 11 and 12 below:

It is proposed to create a fairer pricing schedule where traders are charged per m2 used, ensuring they only pay for the space they are using whilst also bringing the method of calculating fees in line with most other London markets. We also propose to offer new one day and thirty day licence options to provide more flexibility for traders from 2020/21. Please see Table 13 below:

A benchmarking exercise was carried out whilst considering the proposed m2 fees, with Chart 3 below showing that Hackney will remain one of the cheapest places in London to trade from shop fronts if these fees are implemented.

Some changes are also proposed to licence application fees to more accurately reflect the resources required to process these and offer more flexibility for traders, as per Table 14.

The Council has a zero tolerance policy towards A boards because of the impact they have on people with mobility and sight impairments. As a result, we are proposing to implement the fees in Table 15 below, to cover operational costs such as site visits and enforcement action.

Retail price index % increase from 2021/22

To negate the need for expensive and resource intensive consultations in future years we propose to link fees and charges to the retail price index from 2021/22, reserving the right to increase or decrease fees in line with inflation each year.

How to have your say

If you would like to discuss the proposals with Council officers before providing your feedback, then we will be holding a series of drop-in events during the consultation period as follows:

Ridley Road Market Office:

• 26th November: 3pm - 4pm
• 22nd November: 11:30am - 12:30pm

Lower Clapton Road Office:

• 18th November: 12pm - 1pm
• 21st November: 2pm - 3pm

In addition to the drop-in sessions, you can visit the Ridley Road market office during opening hours to discuss any remaining queries that you may have directly with markets officers.

What happens next?

Subject to consideration of any representations received, a formal decision to implement any revised fees and charges will be made by the Council’s cabinet following the consultation. It is anticipated that, subject to approval, the revised conditions would take effect from 1 April 2020, with all traders being notified at least one month in advance of their implementation.