The night market moves to Quay Street

A little after five on Thursday evening, the first stallholders on Quay Street switched on their lights, and for once nobody had to start a generator. By seven the smell of charcoal had drifted over the swing bridge and the queue for dumplings reached back past the old customs house. After nine years in the bus depot car park, the Northgate night market was trading somewhere it is allowed to stay.

The move has been a long time coming. The market began in the depot as a summer experiment, a dozen stalls under borrowed gazebos, and simply never left. Its licence was renewed one year at a time, and every autumn the traders wondered whether the bus company would want its car park back. In the spring the council agreed to close the riverside end of Quay Street four evenings a week and give the market a permanent pitch.

A street, not a car park

The new site runs along the east bank, from the swing bridge to the steps below the customs house. There is room for forty stalls in two rows, with the river on one side and the shopfronts on the other. Power points have been set into the pavement, and the generators that have hummed through every market since the first are meant to be gone by Christmas.

For traders, the difference is people walking past. 'In the car park we were the only thing for half a mile,' says Ruth Adeyemi, who has sold jollof rice and puff-puff at the market since its second summer. 'Here, people pass us on their way home from work. You cannot buy that.'

Farah Siddiqui, who chairs Northgate Market Traders, spent most of the summer on the detail. 'Everyone wanted the river,' they say. 'Nobody wanted to read the licence until July.'

The new rules

A permanent pitch comes with conditions. The licence the council issued in September runs for five years rather than one, but it describes how the street must be used in far more detail than the depot ever did. Stalls have to be set up before opening and packed away within an hour of closing, and every trader must display a food hygiene rating of their own instead of sharing one certificate across the whole market.

What changes on Quay Street

• The riverside end of Quay Street closes to traffic from 16:00 on market days.
• Stalls plug into fixed power points, and generators are phased out by Christmas.
• Amplified music ends half an hour before the market closes.
• Each trader takes their own waste to the new bins by the swing bridge.

Most of the rules have gone down quietly. The one traders keep coming back to is rubbish. At the depot a single skip sat in the corner and the bus company emptied it. On Quay Street each stall is responsible for its own waste, and the licence lets the council suspend a trader who leaves the street dirty three times in a season.

Will people come?

The bigger question is whether the crowds follow. The depot was ugly, but it had parking, and some regulars drove in from the villages north of town. Quay Street has none, and the nearest car park is a ten minute walk away on the other side of the bridge. Traders are counting on the east side tram line, which will stop at the end of the street, to make up the difference.

Neighbours have mixed feelings too. Residents of the flats above the shops were consulted twice over the summer, and several asked for an earlier finish on Saturdays. The council kept the later closing time but has promised to review noise complaints after the first six months.

On the first night, at least, nobody seemed to miss the car park. Families ate on the river steps, a brass band played outside the customs house until the music stopped, and by closing time several stalls had sold out. 'Ask me again in February,' says Ruth Adeyemi, stacking empty trays into a van. 'Anyone can do well in October.'

The market trades from Thursday to Sunday through the winter. Traders will publish summer hours in March.

Location

Quay Street, east bank

Market days

Thursday to Sunday

Organiser

Northgate Market Traders