Most of us agree that the monthly Sunday market creates a buzz and brings people to Wanstead, but what’s it doing to our regular shopkeepers?
If it’s denting their trade, they’re keeping mum… But how can it not affect them when staples like meat, cheese, eggs, bread, cakes, sauces and pickles are bought from the stalls? Surely that must affect the shops’ takings.
“If the market benefits the coffee shops, I wouldn’t oppose it,” says Nish of Londis stoutly. But if the shopkeepers themselves are prepared to keep a stiff upper lip, some of us who live here are more outspoken.
“We want our shops to survive because they’re here for us all week, not just once a month like market people,” one worried resident said. ”If the Sunday traders brought us things we can no longer get since Dunhams the drapers, Andrews the builders’ merchants, Zone the household shop and, of course, Woollies closed, well then we would welcome them with open arms.”
Such things as? Easy: those little usefuls like socks and slippers, bras and knickers, baby clothes and bath mats, tea cloths and tin openers, screws and screwdrivers, pillowslips and pinafores, tee-shirts and tights.
We could go on – but what’s your view?
4 Comments on "Sunday Farmer’s Market – For or Against?"
It is nice, but should come every weekend, not just once a month.
against as the stalls were fantastic at first now they have lost all decent stalls
If they had more burger and pizza stalls, and a beer tent then I’d be all for it.
I’m not sure if one morning a month is enough to justify shops complaints about a dent in trade, they have 29 or 30 other oportunities to catch up! If they find that they do suffer then maybe they could pay some attention to the things that are popular with the market shoppers and look to increase their own product lines to include these? It’s a competitive market (no pun intended) and to survive there is a need to adapt…