Liverpool market traders hit with council demand for three years rent

A council is demanding market traders pay three years worth of rent and other arrears.

Legal letters were sent out on Monday by Liverpool City Council's solicitor to tenants at St John's Market.

Council Liam Robinson said the non-payment was a "significant" financial issue for the authority.

However, traders claim they cannot afford it as the market is "unviable". The city centre market dates back almost 200 years.

Butcher Max Dixon told BBC Radio Merseyside: "The traders agree that something needs to be paid.

"We offered to pay an amount and even last year we attended legal mediation with the council where we discussed our issues.

"We accept we can't stay here for nothing, but sadly the council don't seem to accept that they have produced a market that is unviable."

Mr Dixon added: "We can't afford to pay what they are asking.

"If the market was successful, no trader would have the time to argue over rent.

"What we have here is a massive piece of land in Liverpool city centre which if you develop it properly, could be done excellently.

"The only way this can be resolved is if the council sit down and listen to us.

"If they continue down this road the future of the market doesn't look good."

The market's £2.5m refurbishment in 2016 faced considerable criticism, with traders at the time branding it "drab".

Former mayor Joe Anderson agreed to waive the rent for a number of years.

After the pandemic, it was reinstated but the council claim it was never paid.

The council has said the non-payment of rent has cost it a million pounds a year.

A report the council published in 2022 called the Future of Markets said: "St Johns Market was once one of the most advanced in Europe but is now largely vacant with low footfall, despite the area around continuing to thrive.

"It is restricted by poor signage and advertising. The refurbishment in 2016 has not worked as hoped, and footfall has reduced."

The original St John's Market, designed by Liverpool architect John Foster, was completed in 1822.

It was replaced in 1969 by a new shopping precinct, where the current market hall now stands.

The council says 62 of the market's 104 units are occupied.

Council leader Liam Robinson said: "Since the pandemic we've been in a situation where the market is costing the council a lot of money and there's a shortfall of rent that needs to be paid.

"We will sit down with individual traders to look at how we can get the arrears paid to the council.

"It's been a complicated past and the council probably hasn't always done everything that it perhaps needed to do around this, but with the council's current financial situation - albeit stable but difficult - we need to address the big financial pressures facing the council, and this is one of them."

Opposition leader Carl Cashman said it was a "smack in the face" to council tax payers that the authority was writing off debts owed to it by other businesses while pursuing the market traders.

Published documents have revealed that the authority is writing off £25m of unrecoverable council tax debt and £14m of business rates which it says it will not be able to get back.

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