Traders at Nottingham's Victoria Market say they are 'not holding their breath' on getting a final decision about the venue's future following recent city council elections. The vote on May 4 saw Labour return to their leadership of Nottingham City Council with a stronger majority.
One of the key issues facing the administration is the future of businesses at the Victoria Market, based in the Victoria Centre, a situation which has hung in the balance for more than a year. Nottinghamshire Live first reported on uncertainty about the historic venue in January 2022, when it was revealed that Nottingham City Council was in "ongoing discussions" with its asset managers, Global Mutual.
A consultation was then held between April and June last year and, since then, Nottingham City Council has been in talks about compensation offers with the 30 remaining traders in the event of the market's closure. Despite traders saying they were originally given a February 24 date by which the council was due to surrender the lease, this deadline has now passed without any further clarity being given.
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Some of the business owners at the market say they have been told that there will be no changes to the current situation before the end of May. But John Easom, the owner of the Gold Bank Jewellers, said: "I would hope that now the elections are over we'll get some answers, but I'm not holding my breath.
"They might just say that they want another six to eight weeks to deliberate, which is what they've done every time before. I do want to stay in the market, but the council has handled this so badly that it's become a very difficult place to be.
"If they'd have said in January 2022 that we'd still be in this position a year and a half on, then none of the traders would have had it." Nick Clark, the owner of Cobblers and Keys, said: "Saying nothing will change before the end of May doesn't necessarily mean that they will actually make a decision at that stage.
"It's been one and a half years now since this debacle started, we did have a meeting four weeks ago but it felt like they just organised that so they could say we had been given a meeting. They were just paying lip service to us and it was embarrassing."
Nottingham City Council confirmed that the position on the Victoria Market remains the same, with the elections not having an impact on the process and new portfolio holders yet to be allocated. The authority said in its most recent statement: "We understand that uncertainty about the market's future is uncomfortable and unhelpful for traders. While we are negotiating with Global Mutual, it is unfortunately impossible to give them a definitive answer."
And in an update, council leader, Councillor David Mellen, said: "There is movement but we cannot really discuss it because it is commercial negotiations with both the traders and with the [asset managers] of the centre.
“We want to resolve it as soon as we can. We have put a date of the end of May as an effort to try and do that.
“It is frustrating for the traders, I know, because they want to have some certainty but I have pledged to safeguard the money and so therefore we need to see the whole picture before we agree with what is happening with the market.”
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