A major revamp of Enfield Town Market, due to take place in October, has the aim of smartening up the market, increasing the range of goods on sale and extendingopening hours. Good news - but it is important that the new management do not ignore the current traders and the customers who frequent the market because of its low prices and friendly and familiar stallholders.
The body responsible for both the Market and the Market Place on which it is held is the Old Enfield Charitable Trust, which distributes a proportion of the profits from the Market as charity and also owns almshouses. Until recently the Charitable Trust ran the market directly, but it is now employing an outside company to manage the market - most probably a company with a track record of relaunching markets that are in decline. Though the name of this company has not been made public, we do know that the website for the new Enfield Market (www.enfieldmarket.co.uk) is registered in the name of someone associated with managing markets in the West Country.
The cheery red and white awnings will disappear in OctoberThe new managers plan to do away with all the current traditional stalls, with their cheery red and white striped awnings, and instead install standardised "gazebos", arranged in regular rows (the two greengrocers already have their gazebos). Rather than bringing in and taking away their goods each day, stallholders will be expected to leave their wares in the gazebos overnight.
Currently the market, whose history can be traced back to 1303, operates on Thursday, Friday and Saturday mornings and closes mid-afternoon (4pm on Thursday and Friday, 5pm on Saturday). From October the opening hours will be 11am to 8pm on Thursdays and Fridays and 9am to 6pm on Saturdays. These new times are likely to be better from the point of view of most shoppers, but are not welcomed by some of the current stallholders, for whom they will require significant changes. Greengrocers, butchers and fishmongers, for example, have to visit wholesale markets (Billingsgate, New Covent Garden etc) in the wee small hours and would find it difficult to then work until 8pm. In fact, traditional market traders are not geared up at all for nine-hour working and many would have to introduce shift working and extra employees, which, unless their sales increase, would eat into already slim profit margins.
Advertising by the new company reveals a clear desire to move upmarket. They says the are looking for "exceptional traders able to provide quality produce displayed in a professional manner to reflect the new image of Enfield Market". So we can perhaps expect the very traditional and slightly ramshackle English town market that we now have to be replaced by something more along the lines of Borough Market, the Covent Garden Thursday food market or upmarket farmers' markets such as the Alexandra Palace market.
There's no doubt that these markets sell some very high quality products that it would be nice to be able to buy in Enfield Town. And hopefully the new market will attract more shoppers and help revive the Town - perhaps leading to new tenants for the shops in Church Street that are currently empty. But what about the current traders and shoppers, some of whom have been selling and buying at the market for many years? The fruit and veg they sell are of high quality, but at prices that are a fraction of those charged at Borough Market (or in supermarkets, for that matter). What about the customers who rely on the market for proper food at prices they can afford? It is vital that these people, who have kept this traditional market alive, do not fall foul to "gentrification". Without them, Enfield Market would have ceased to exist long ago. The new management must take proper account of their concerns and take Enfield Market forward as somewhere where young and old, cool and uncool, rich and poor can buy and sell alongside one another.
