WITH LITTLE FANFARE a new market opened in Hackney today Saturday 28 July 2018 and traders and the public took to it.

Kingsland Market controversially replaces the Waste, the Kingsland Road jumble of stalls where working-class people found affordable furniture, clothes, other household essentials and toys and leisure items. 

It was known as the Waste because it was on unused land between the Fox pub at Middleton Road in the south, and in the north, the present Oxfam location at Forest Road E8 4AR.

Loving Dalston campaigned with a series of articles to save the traditional and loved market from a Hackney council process of attrition, inspired by the complaints of local shopkeepers, but the market collapsed in 2014. The council announced it would organise a new market on the site and traders were suspicious it would be another Broadway Market.

Their fears were misplaced. Kingsland Market offerings today included fashion; small secondhand goods; books, old and new, and trainers, was smaller than its predecessor.

It looked disconcertingly neat, lacking the disorder that used to suggest the possibility of bargains, but otherwise there were few differences between it and the Waste.

Andy Tomarsi, who brought his tools stall back to the pitch he had when the market was called the Waste, told Loving Dalston: “It [the market] looks alright. I’m doing good already.”

Waste veteran Harry West’s stall seemed to fill the gap left by the departure from Londons market by market legend Norman used to produce from his van.

Susana Bastos, selling bric-a-brac, said: “The market has been open only a few hours and I’m happy so far.”

Her pitch cost her £100 for four Saturdays — which she agreed was good value — and a six-month trading licence £50. She had also bought a year’s insurance. 

Katy Essex, who moved from Hackney to open a small brocante shop in Market Harborough, Leicestershire, returned to try a £32 one-day stall. It was worth it: “there’s been a lot of footfall”.

A modest community note was struck by Lisa Lue Affat and Debbie Mitchener, who hired a stall for the Wilton Estate Tenants and Residents Association — with help from the Greggs Foundation,” they hastily added — to offer food items and floor displays produced by volunteers on the Dalston estate.

The market stalls attracted a younger clientele than the Waste did. One of them, Ieva Paulina, of Dalston, who is originally from Latvia, said she liked the look of the market and would come again. 

David Altheer 280718

* Pictures © DavidAltheer @ gmail.com, and for sale for reproduction. Bigger format versions are usually available.

* Backstory: Kingsland market to close; High rise in Ridley Road; Seven-floor application at 75 refused; Rambling Down Ridley Road’s favourite shops

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