Council ‘kill-joys’ lack Christmas spirit say Broadway Market traders

The charges affect all businesses using street space to trade. Photograph: Hackney Citizen

Hackney Council officials have been labelled “scrooges” over plans to charge for tables and chairs used by visitors to Broadway Market.

The tables and chairs have been provided by local cafés La Bouche and Ca Phe VN for the past eight years for the joint use of their customers and visitors to the Saturday market.

However in recent weeks the council has sent a second stern warning to the owner of La Bouche, Stephane Cusset, over the use of the street furniture “without a licence” and ordered him to pay for its use – with the proceeds to go “to the Broadway Market income”.

Andrew Veitch, of the Broadway Market Traders and Residents Association, said the decision had come “out of the blue”, although he admitted that the use of the tables and chairs by both parties was “a grey area”.

Mr Veitch said the not-for-profit BMTRA had paid £120 for the use of the furniture on November 3 to avoid any conflict on that day as retail expert and TV personality Mary Portas had been due to visit as part of a new programme on the rejuvenation of Ridley Road Market.

“We were being used as an example of how it should be done, so we thought it would probably be bad to have a bit of a furore on that day of all days,” he said.

Mr Veitch said the BMTRA were now looking for this sum to be refunded.

A spokesperson for Hackney Council said: “Traders selling food on Broadway Market may require seating and tables for diners in order to support their business.

“As this occurs on the public highway and creates a commercial benefit for traders it is a licensable activity.”

'Banned': buskers on Broadway Market. Photograph: Aoife Moriarty

Musicians have also been asked to refrain in recent weeks from playing on the corner of Dericote Street, as part of an agreement between the market and the council, following a complaint from a resident.

Andrew Veitch of the BMTRA told the Hackney Citizen that the council’s Environmental Enforcement Officers  told him they had a complaint from a resident about buskers at the Dericote Street / Broadway Market junction on Saturdays.

Mr Veitch said he and they agreed that the most practical solution would be to ask buskers not to perform at this spot.

Stephen Selby, landlord of the Off Broadway Bar on the corner of Dericote Street, said he was “upset” at the decision, which means Christmas carol singers from St John-at-Hackney Church will not be able to perform at the spot as usual this year.

Mr Selby – who called the council “kill-joy Cromwellians” – said: “Frankly those who live next to a market should either enjoy the ambience or go and live in the ‘leafies’.

“That Hackney Enforcement operates on complaints, it’s a wonder how enterprise will ever flourish here again.”

A Council spokesperson denied that musicians are banned from the corner of Dericote Street and Broadway Market.

• This article was amended on Monday 17 December 2012 to clarify that it is Broadway Market Traders and Residents Association that is not-for-profit. The original said that Broadway Market itself is not-for-profit. This has been corrected.

• This article also stated that “musicians have also been unofficially ‘banned’ (our italics) in recent weeks from playing on the corner of Dericote Street”. It has been amended to state that “musicians have also been asked to refrain in recent weeks from playing on the corner of Dericote Street.”