Green light for market move

Following over 18 months of uncertainty the Alderley Edge Farmers Market has been granted permission to relocate to the village centre.

Cheshire East Council has agreed that the monthly market can set up their stalls on the pavement outside the shops on London Road.

Organiser Christine Munro told parish councillors "I actually did a survey of all the traders in the village and I approached 43 traders and gave them 3 questions.

"The first question was would you like the Alderley Edge Farmers Market to be located on London Road, every single one of them said yes.

"Would you be in agreement to a gazebo being placed on the pavement in front of your shop, 17 of them said yes. Out of the others the majority of them said they would like to open and take part in the market. Six of them said it wasn't that applicable to them because they were solicitors etc."

Speaking about Cheshire East Council granting permission for the move, Councillor Melanie Connor said "It is now open for any market to come to Alderley and use a Sunday so the Artisan Market can come, the Belgium Market can come at Christmas and there's quite a lot of people who want that."

Cllr Connor added "I am not against Christine doing it but she has to realise that next week there could be someone coming along and doing something different because we've got all these emails going to Cheshire East from people wanting to have markets in Alderley Edge, all of them want to come to Alderley over the weekend."

Christine Munro responded "I've been running the market for 14 years and I am quite happy for somebody else to come along. I am just asking for permission to move the market from where it was because it didn't work, it didn't work not just for me but it didn't work for the stall holders as they didn't sell sufficiently. There wasn't sufficient footfall.

"We had one market which was two Christmases ago in the village. The whole day it threw it down with rain, the traders had a fantastic day and they have all asked me to come back with the market."

Christine requested a 6 month trial saying "Everybody wants it, the customers want it, the traders want it, the producers want it."

Alderley Edge Parish Council thanked Christine Munro for the courtesy but told her that she did not need their permission as it had already been granted by Cheshire East Council.

The next Alderley Edge Farmer's Market will be held on London Road on Sunday 13th October from 10am to 4pm.

With the new food, craft and vintage fair at Aldeli it looks as though we could have two regular markets in the village.