Hundreds packed the streets for Leominster’s Victorian street market, but the event left a sour taste for at least one local business.
Market stalls in Corn Square effectively ‘blockaded’ the Three Horse Shoes on Saturday, claimed landlady Deborah Burgess, who has complained to Leominster Town Council that the event again stopped customers getting in to the pub.
“It destroyed our trade,” she said. “We had no passing trade, it wa a complete blockade.”
A letter detailing her criticims of the street market in 2007 was handed in to the town council offices before this year’s event. The main points included unacceptable noise in the early morning while contractors erected market stalls, and banks of stalls forming a blockade around the pub.
“There was no regard for us,” she said in the letter. Rubbish was left behind, and fumes from a generator escaped into the pub, she added. Lunches trade was just one-tenth of normal business during last year’s Victorian market. She felt the organisers failed to support local traders who rely on local trade. Noise during preparations last week was slightly improved, she said, and the situation was better after her complaints about rubbish.
“We wrote the letter because we have come to dread the event; we are right in the middle of it,” she said.
“Like all businesses we are suffering at the moment, and no public house can afford to take losses like this.” One of her customers felt market stalls could be arranged in a different format to prevent blockading the pub.
Town clerk Christina Bromage and Councillor Molly Cooke, chairman of Leominster Attractions’ Group, have written a reply.
“The group organises this one-off event for the benefit of the town and traders, and Leominster and its traders are of paramount importance to Leominster Town Council,” the letter said. It was unacceptable to be woken at 7am by contractors, it continues, but it pointed out that rubbish was bagged and put on a lorry. The letter invites the landlady to join the organisers’ group.
Town councillors praised organisers for a “fantastic job”, and the town was said to be heaving with people. Mayor Councillor Peter McCaull said: “Everyone said what a fantastic day they’d had.”
He said that complaints about the event had been dealt with.
