A long-standing Nottingham Victoria Centre Market stallholder says she has been forced to take out her pension early as she blasted Nottingham City Council over repeated delays on its future. The authority said it may bring an end to the market’s lease in a bid to save £39m over 50 years.
But a final decision has still not been made more than a year after the plan was first made public, with a decision on its fate being pushed back a number of times. This has created uncertainty for stallholders, who say they have been left out of pocket as a result.
Among them is Carole Lilley, who has been trading at the market for 38 years and currently runs 'Carole's', an underwear stall. The 64-year-old said she had taken out her pension early due going into thousands of pounds of credit card debt.
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"I'm slowly going deeper and deeper into debt," she said. "I've now decided to cash my pensions in because I won't be able to live and I need to make money.
"It's just ridiculous, they've dragged it on and if I'd have finished in September instead of waiting to get compensation which doesn't seem to be coming, I could've got a job in Aldi filling up the shelves for £10.50 an hour. Instead I'm sitting here like an idiot, I just feel very, very angry now because I'm wasting my life.
"I want to go travelling. I'm sat here waiting for customers to come when they've been told for the last six months that the market's closing down."
Over her 38 years of trading at the market, Ms Lilley has run 10 different units and five businesses. She said she has paid the council roughly £1.75million in rent during that period.
However, she says the Labour-run authority, which was recently criticised by the government on the issue, has not been in communication with her. "When you're told you're closing down you don't go out and buy stock, therefore you don't take any money," said Ms Lilley.
"So in the Christmas period we suffered, and your health suffers because you can't get any sleep, it's just not fair." In a message to the council she said: "Get your act together and realise how it's upsetting and stressing the people in the market, you can't run a business like this.
"They're dragging out and we've been told we won't find out until the end of May, that's six months trading when we didn't expect to be open."
A Nottingham City Council spokesperson said: “We contacted traders at the end of March to update them on our latest position about the future of the market. As promised, in order to provide a level of certainty and help them plan, we have gone back to them to confirm that there will be no changes until at least the end of May 2023.
“We appreciate that traders would prefer something longer-term than this and we have assured them that as soon as we have any further information, we will update them.”
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