Oxford Covered Market shop owners have started an online petition to challenge an increase in rent. The Oxford City Council is proposing increasing what it charges tenants in the Covered Market by up to 70%.
Shop-owners intend to collect 20,000 signatures in order to pressure the Council to reappraise its rent prices.
However, Bob Price, leader of the Council, has defended the rent increase, saying, “The process for setting rents in the Covered Market is no different than for any commercial landlord.”
The ‘Save the Oxford Covered Market’ campaign website states, “In these very difficult trading times, when all other Councils and the Government are trying to help town centres and small businesses, Oxford City Council are seeking to increase our rents by an average of 50%, and some, by as much as 70%.”
The “Save the Oxford Covered Market” campaign website continued, “This level of increase in our overheads is unsustainable for the majority of tenants and will mean a large number of them being put at risk of losing their business. The very existence of the market itself is in jeopardy.”
At the time of going to press, the petition had gathered over 4300 signatures.
Chris Farren, who is leading the petition, said that the Covered Market Traders’ Association (CMTA) and the City Council are mired in “an impasse.”
Farren, manager of the Cake Shop, further commented that the mood in the market is “Angry, very angry. We’ve been trying to negotiate with
the council for just over a year.”
Other shop-owners expressed their displeasure to Cherwell. Paul Lee, who manages Covered Arts and Framing Services, has said that the situation is “a great shame.”
Lee continued “It’s putting everybody under extreme pressure. We can’t afford these rents. Oxford has this wonderful, unique Covered Market, and we can’t understand what the council are proposing to do by putting the increase on the rents in such a way that it will completely wipe out independent traders from the city.
“I’ve worked very hard at creating this business from absolutely nothing. As hard as I’ve worked, I feel I’m just having it ripped away from under my feet – everything I’ve ever done. I’m incredibly frustrated and quite flabbergasted as to why this is happening.”
Joy Hetherington who owns Oxford Aromatics told Cherwell, “We are not asking for a reduced rent, we are asking for a fair rent”.
Oxford students are also involved in the campaign. Hadrian Wise, who studies PPE at Merton, has written a letter to two local councillors, Susanna Pressel and Colin Cook.
In the letters, Wise claims that the proposed rent increase is “driving out the independent traders, replacing them with boring, low-quality chain stores devoid of customer service who can afford exorbitant rents”.
He continues “The Covered Market is the single greatest non-academic resource in the city of Oxford. Any Council that cared about the city would be doing everything it could to promote such a resource and enable it to prosper.”
Amidst mounting pressure from the public and the CMTA, the council released a statement. “Clearly it is our aspiration to retain the Covered
Market as a place where there are independent shops and a variety of different trades.” The council states that it “has a duty to taxpayers to set
rents at the market value.”
