A NEW Covent Garden tenant who favours a radical change in trading hours in order to beat the congestion charge has had his ideas quashed by market chiefs.
What 4 boss David Heaton-Harris advocates a switch to 10pm opening in SW8, which he believes will solve the problem of increased costs when London mayor Ken Livingstone's charging regime begins in February 2003.
The scheme, designed to reduce traffic and increase quality of life in the capital, will work by charging motorists £5 a day to drive into central London between 7am and 6.30pm.
Exemptions only apply to emergency tender and essential council traffic.
Heaton-Harris said: 'Ken is going to make sure they are not delivering during the daytime, so we are in a catch-22 situation.
'The market should open at 10pm so all lorries that deliver to central London can be in and out before the charges take effect.' He added that the new hours would make staffing the Nine Elms site much easier.
He said: 'The current hours [2am onwards] are neither night nor day. Youngsters go out in the evening and they are knackered when they come in.' With this way, he added, employees would be at work for 'proper night-shift hours'.
Heaton-Harris, who is agnostic about the scheme, which is favoured in principle by most Londoners, also believes that the market should make more use of its car-parking facilities.
He said: 'The market could also help Mayor Ken, motorists and the tenants of the market by charging to park in space not used by the tenants.' But market bosses said that his ideas had not been properly considered and branded them impractical.
Official spokeswoman Helen Evans said: 'David is somebody who likes to be pro-active but this is not something he has discussed.
'I can't see how this is a workable idea. When are deliveries going to come into the market?' Evans explained that all that would happen is those incoming vehicles crossing the zone would have to pay the charge when delivering to the market for wholesale the following morning, and that the proposed new hours would cause havoc with the supply chain.
She said: 'There is no point in having a cool chain if they are going to leave stuff on someone's doorstep.' She added that the market already generates revenue from the rent of parking spaces, with National Coaches one of its a major client.
Evans also reassured Heaton-Harris that the market had been doing all it could do to change Livingstone's mind, although she admitted that thus far its efforts had been fruitless.
She said: 'The Covent Garden Market Authority, Tenants Association and Transport and General Workers Union – have all been lobbying actively. Members of the Greater London Authority and Transport for London have been here looking at the market, but Ken has not responded.' Meanwhile Heaton-Harris said that he was not moaning about their efforts, but simply vaunting new ideas.
He said: 'I can't complain, because I don't sit on the tenants' and authority's committees – just as if you don't vote you can't complain about the government – but you can put ideas forward and 90 per cent of the tenants have seen mine. Things have to change.'
