Gary Marshall, joint acting chairman of the Covent Garden Market Tenants’ Association, told Tuesday’s meeting that its executive committee has been looking for ways to push the market forward since 2002.
“We have known for some time that the government wishes to divest itself of the market,” he said, “but the vibes have been getting heavier recently and it appears Defra is close to getting tenders out to parties interested in buying the market,” he said.
“While we have talked to interested parties in the past, Nick Saphir is the first person or party to come to us with a proposal that makes us part of shaping our future.
“Others have not come to the tenants’ association at all and in our opinion have not shown the amount of interest in the welfare of the tenants here as they should. The arrogance shown by the Corporation of London in its view of the importance of this market was hard to believe.”
Marshall recognised that a lot of hard work lies ahead if tenants are to decide on this course of action. “Having not been responsible for running a market before, convincing the government that we can run this market as one united group moving in one direction will be difficult.
“We have looked into buying the market as tenants before, but after a great deal of analysis, we decided we didn’t have the skills base or the necessary unity to do it alone.
“With our limited capacity, the executive believes this is a win-win decision for tenants at this stage. Even if the joint venture with Nick Saphir doesn’t happen, at the very least we have got ourselves moving forward.
“The market is not going to be disposed of tomorrow, but massive change is in the air.”
The meeting ended with an almost unanimous show of support for the initiative to move onto its next stage.
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