I have lived in Spalding for 50 years. When I first moved here the town was really nice with numerous individual shops.
It was not really necessary to go out of Spalding to buy what you wanted as we could buy from our local shops.
Over the years these individual shops have closed either when the owners have died or retired and the premises have been taken over by charity shops, building societies, estate agents and more recently Eastern European shops.
We are now in fear of losing our Tuesday and Saturday market. One of the stalls that I use on a regular basis has already closed because they are unable to erect their stall.
This has therefore put someone who is willing to work on the dole because our local council has decided its staff cannot erect the stalls due to the current circumstances.
It is strange that workers can sit in close proximity to each other whilst having their breaks and lunch when doing waste collections (and I must say they do a marvellous job week in and week out) but they are not allowed to erect stalls in the open air.
I assume that it is not the staff that have made this decision but some jobsworth trying to make life more difficult for people than it already is.
If the council does not want to put up stalls why don’t they allow market traders to have a permanent pitch inside Beales empty shop so that traders could trade six days a week if they wanted to? It might be that more stall holders would come to Spalding and therefore more shoppers would come into town.
At the moment the town is dying fast and it will not be long before some of the shops that we do have will close and be taken over by yet another charity shop, estate agent or Eastern European store.
Well done to the three councillors who are fighting to keep our market for the people of Spalding to enjoy and also keeping people in work, you are a credit to us.
Carol Modd
via email
