SAVE OUR MARKETS!!

Representatives from The Wholesale Fresh Produce Association and the Bull Ring Open Market Committee met last week to discuss the current situation facing both the Wholesale Market and the Bull Ring Open Market. Keith Smith and Bernice Ellis decided it was important to draw attention to the decision taken by BCC by peacefully marching from The Bull Ring Market to the Lib Dem Conference taking place this week at The ICC.

Okay, so the plan is to meet at 12.30pm at St Martins Church and march through town to the ICC. Please come and make your voices heard! We want to keep our markets!

Here is the link to the route.

http://walkit.com/walk/?city=birmingham&from=Bull+Ring+Shopping+Centre&fuid=3067518_3477587&to=B1+2EA&tuid=311077

Carl Chinn meets Traders

Carl Chinn met up with us today in the market to show his support for the traders and to stress the importance of the markets to Birmingham.

We walked around the markets talking to traders about the proposed closure of the Wholesale Markets and the impact that this will have on the markets and small businesses in the area.

I spoke with Pauline who has been shopping in the market since she was a child and is disgusted at Birmingham City Council’s decision to close the Wholesale Markets.

Arthur Jones

There’s a man that I always chat to when he passes me in the market. His name is Arthur Jones, he’s 90 years old and comes down the market often for a chat with traders.

He worked in the Bull Ring Market from the age of twelve until he retired and his father before him, ‘Little Dicky Jones’ worked here for forty years before that. I asked him what he thought of the planned closure of the Wholesale Markets.

CARL CHINN – MARKETS CHAMPION

Bernice and I went to meet Carl Chinn today to talk about his reaction to the planned closure of the Wholesale Markets and the impacts that he forsees it may have on the Bull Ring Markets.

 

A really successful and motivating chat culminating in the decision to hold a Public Meeting to look at the importance of The Bull Ring Market to Birmingham and the people and also to talk about ways in which we can help shape it’s future and retain the markets for the people of Birmingham.

We are in the process in organising this event, which we hope will take place towards the end of September, please follow this blog or check on Facebook or Twitter for updates.

Thanks to Carl for his continued support of The Bull Ring Markets, it’s traders and the people who use it.

Thursday @ The Bull Ring Markets

A beautifully sunny day at the Bull Ring Market today, plenty of people milling around, interested in finding out more about out campaign. I had just set up the stall when a couple with 2 small children approached me to find out what was going on. As we chatted about the proposed closure of the Wholesale Market, it transpired that they didn’t live in Birmingham but had come down for a day trip specifically to come to the Markets from London. The woman told me that she was originally from Gloucester and had always come to the market as a child with her family and even though as an adult she had relocated to London she still came up a few times a year to come to the market. Her memory of the markets is that of a vibrant shopping area where many goods could be purchased at a great price. They felt it would be a great loss for the region to lose it’s historic markets to redevelopment.

Also on the information stall was Nigel Harris, a Bull Ring Open Market trader who had given up a couple of hours of his morning to talk with the public and get more signatures for our petition. Here’s what Nigel said;

Thanks again to all volunteer, past, present and potential! C’mon you know you want to!

 

INFORMATION STALL

Even on a quiet market day, like today, we still collected over 500 signatures from people shopping down there. People are angry that Birmingham City Council feels that it has moral right to sell land that they feel has been entrusted to them for the good of the people of Birmingham. From a recent trip to the archives of Birmingham City Library what I could gather, is that after Peter De Birmingham was given the Market Charter, eventually someone from the Cadbury family and some other bloke bought it rather cheaply and then later on ‘entrusted’ it to The Birmingham Corporation to ensure that the people of Birmingham always had a market on which to rely on for access to a wide range of goods. So, surely the moral obligation is not to sell it but actually to care for it and help maintain it’s upkeep and long life?

So, we need to continue spreading the word, writing to our local councillors and MP’s and asking people to sign the petition.

We are still looking for people to help out on the Information Stall, we are trying to be open Tues to Sat from 10am – 4pm, so if anyone has a few hours to spare please, please get in touch!! Either via this blog or email bullringopenmarket@hotmail.com

Thanks

 

KATIE AND THE BIG CITY PLAN

Great day on the stall – lots of public interest and comments, including letters to councillors and MP’s. Walked into town – up past the Bullring (as in shopping mall) and looked at the progress of this new development called Spiceal Street, pioneered by Hammerson’s. Their novel idea seeks to provide a portal between the 1700′s and the 21st century, to transport Brummies from their humdrum existence into the past…to a Bull Ring that is full of the hustle and bustle of times gone past, generous hospitality and cheerful banter as traders share their wares, an abundance of produce from fruit and vegetables, flowers, meat and the such…

Oh hang on a minute, we’ve already got that! Thanks Hammersons for re-packaging and re-designing something that is already here and a place that thousands of Birmingham people and from farther afield already appreciate, we don’t need to clean it up and sanitize it, we have a thriving community of traders who work and come from third or fourth generation market families.  This is an example of one such woman,Katie;

KATIE

 

My question is where does Katie fit into Spiceal Street and The Big City Plan?

We have living history in our city centre yet there seems to be a desire to erase what is and create a 2d version that is a mere empty reflection of the authentic article.