A long-term Byron Community Market stallholder, and member of the stallholder committee that consults with Council, says he is ringing the alarm on the ‘flawed process used by Council to move our market to the centre of town’.
DA 10.2021.827.1, put forward by Council, aims to move the monthly markets into Byron’s CBD and close Jonson Street for the day.
Yet Garry Rodgers, from The Honey Wagon, told The Echo there was inadequate consultation around the move and questions why Butler Street Reserve is okay for the weekly (and smaller) farmers market, but not the larger monthly market.
Mr Rodgers also suspects there will be a loss of market stallholders from the new location, owing to the new site being unsuitable for them.
Another market stall holder, Helen Burns, says she has been a permanent stallholder for the past thirty-five years, and consultation has been tokenistic and is unsure how the logistics will work, having to load in and out of the CBD.
But Manager of the monthly market, Kate Hardman, from the Byron Community Centre, told The Echo she sought the advice of the stallholder committee about where the Community Markets can move, ‘many times’.
‘The move is not a decision, it’s a solution’, she said.
‘The Community Market has to move ASAP. It can’t stay on the foreshore, and has already overstayed its original licence by 18 months. It also can’t return to the Butler Street Reserve currently. There are no other feasible options’.
‘A representative from Council met with the committee before the DA was submitted and committee members’ concerns were addressed in detail.
‘Byron Council also delivered a comprehensive survey before the DA was submitted. This was passed on to all stallholders and had a good number of responses. Not much else could have been done at such early stages in my view.’
While a request by Mr Rodgers for a stallholder survey to be circulated was supported by Council staff at a recent committee meeting, Ms Hardman said that the survey is planned to be sent out after the DA has been open to the public to view, ‘so that stallholders have an opportunity to read and understand it before we send out questions’.
‘Information is critical for people to make informed decisions. A timeframe for this survey was not set in the meeting.’
Council staff added, ‘Council understands that there are stallholders who are unsupportive of the relocation. There are over 300 stallholders at the Byron Community Market – a survey was developed and distributed to all stallholders (and open to all community members). All stallholders were sent this survey multiple times by market management, and have been sent the opportunity to put DA submissions in, multiple times. It is up to stallholders to take up the opportunities to provide feedback – individually or collectively – through these channels, market management and/or their stallholder committee’.
Regarding how stallholders will be able to set up, given cars are often left overnight on the location where stallholders are to set up, Council staff replied that they have plans in place to deal with cars left overnight.
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