Leader – Ridley Road Market is the soul of Hackney

Sue Baldwin at her egg stall, Ridley Road Market. Photograph: Hackney Citizen

Were Ridley Road Market’s vitality desirable purely because of the economic opportunities it offers for hundreds of lower income people, that alone would make it worth protecting.

But it is about more than that. This market is part of the essence of Hackney and the daily lives of generations of people who have lived and still live here.

One of the dwindling bastions of what can rightfully be called old Hackney, it’s an intrinsically messy place – precisely the kind of locale that well-meaning urban planners and politicians have historically misunderstood and desired to bring order and control to.

Of course, they would deny wanting to run the market down.

They say new fees they hope to charge costermongers and other traders to recoup some of the costs of cleaning up after them will not imperil livelihoods, and they no doubt believe this.

But the forces that regeneration can unleash might have precisely this effect, whether politicians intend it or not. A myriad of schemes now threaten the fabric of Dalston.

Councillors should be fighting to ensure they do not rip the soul out of the area. They could start by looking again at their fees plan.

Yes, cleaning up after traders costs money, but so does sweeping up fast food detritus or clearing chewing gum off pavements, and we don’t see any analysis of whether the big companies responsible should be charged extra.

The stallholders of Ridley Road operate the smallest of small businesses. They are precisely the kind of people a Labour council should be seeking to help.

The market has a rich history. Older Jews from Stamford Hill remember schlepping to Ridley Road to buy live chicken in the 1950s that they would carry clucking to the shochet (slaughterer). Now Africans shop for giant snails and “Nollywood” DVDs.

The market is an ethnic melting pot. It has seen its share of scandal too. It’s a chaotic, noisy, sometimes smelly place – but it would be a tragedy to see it die.