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Stallholders welcome more support for markets
TOWN centre market traders welcomed new planning guidance launched yesterday and said independent retailers needed protection from large out-of-town supermarkets and shopping centres.
Rosie Winterton, Minister for Yorkshire and the Humber, is also the Government's "markets champion" and she visited stalls on Doncaster market yesterday morning with Communities Minister John Healey to tell traders about the Government's action.
As revealed by the Yorkshire Post yesterday, the guidance aims to curb huge retail developments which ministers believe are having a detrimental effect on traditional town centre shops, and give councils more power to control large out-of-town projects.
Mr Healey, the MP for Rotherham constituency Wentworth, and Miss Winterton, Doncaster Central MP, were challenged by shoppers and stallholders about problems they were facing and spent an hour talking and buying produce.
Both ministers talked to fishmonger Norman Rouse, who has been trading on Doncaster Market for decades.
He said: "I think out-of-town shopping centres are affecting trade quite honestly. This stall has been here since 1935 when my brother started the fish business and I started working on here in the 1940s.
"This fish market has always been one of the best markets in Yorkshire, we give them good service. But we need support from the politicians."
Fellow stallholder Nigel Berry, who has worked as a fishmonger in the market since 1971, said out-of-town offers had affected trade.
He added: "It's something that has been going on for the last 20 years and we have been hit. But we are still here, still trading and I think the future is looking better.
"This is a bit like shutting the door after the horse has bolted, a lot of the out-of-town shopping developments have been done. They are there and we have got to compete with them. A little bit of help and money invested into town centres is what we need, and that should help us."
Miss Winterton said: "One of the issues that people have raised is that sometimes, with out-of-town, big developments there is not enough facility for the council to be able to say there will be a detrimental effect on the market.
"This is about saying what can we actively do to improve the situation for our local traders like those we are seeing here today."
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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