How much!

[Stilllearning]

Am I reading this right?

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leeds-60751093

Yes, it is a quiet Sunday afternoon...

[Derek R.]

Yes you are, and that's just the start.

But this reaches into politics. Small businesses will be targeted. Sadly it will have far reaching consequences for all.

 

Mind you, be wary of what the BBC put out. They've got form.

Edited March 20, 2022 by Derek R.

[Arthur Marshall]

Presumably it's, pardon rhe pun, the market rate. Councils are so strapped for cash now they're having to push everything they can to the limit, and ratepayers would be incensed if they did any less. It's a shame, like libraries closing.

[David Mack]

Leeds Kirgate Market is a thing of two halves. The front part is a grand Victorian folly with ornate stalls, cast iron columns and high ceiling, while behind is a very bland low roofed 1960s concrete construction. For all the 18 years I worked in Leeds there were empty stalls in the back part and others that never seemed to be open. The market has been in long term decline for years, and periodically the council tries another regeneration initiative. And always there is a tension between funding the improvements and keeping rents at a level that will retain existing stallholders and attract new ones. The effects of the pandemic and the long term trend towards online shopping won't have helped either. Not sure what the answer is, but the city council doesn't have the resources to keep pouring money in.

[Heartland]

Whenever, I went out by boat the local markets near the waterway were very useful for supplies, and I have used Kirkgate on a couple of occasions on visits along the Aire & Calder/Leeds Liverpool. It is particularly sad to see this notice as butchers are becoming less common these days.

[ditchcrawler]

2 minutes ago, Heartland said:

Whenever, I went out by boat the local markets near the waterway were very useful for supplies, and I have used Kirkgate on a couple of occasions on visits along the Aire & Calder/Leeds Liverpool. It is particularly sad to see this notice as butchers are becoming less common these days.

The problem with both  butchers and fish merchants is that the like of Tesco could off much better prices so they lost their trade, now whats happened Tesco have severly restricted their butchery and fish  stands but the butcher and fish merchants have now gone.

[IanD]

Are those numbers really "per month"? They seem ridiculously high...

 

"Mr Michaels said he now paid about £10,000 a month in rent, a price he said was no longer sustainable.

 

In a statement, Leeds City Council said rents on a single unit at Kirkgate Market ranged from £2,000 to a maximum of £34,314, excluding service charges."

[Jen-in-Wellies]

16 hours ago, David Mack said:

Leeds Kirgate Market is a thing of two halves. The front part is a grand Victorian folly with ornate stalls, cast iron columns and high ceiling, while behind is a very bland low roofed 1960s concrete construction. For all the 18 years I worked in Leeds there were empty stalls in the back part and others that never seemed to be open. The market has been in long term decline for years, and periodically the council tries another regeneration initiative. And always there is a tension between funding the improvements and keeping rents at a level that will retain existing stallholders and attract new ones. The effects of the pandemic and the long term trend towards online shopping won't have helped either. Not sure what the answer is, but the city council doesn't have the resources to keep pouring money in.

 

Another possibility is that the council are deliberately pricing the traders out to empty the market, so the site can be sold to developers for a tidy profit and then put to a new use. Probably not a goer for the Victorian part, but the '60's section would be fair game for demolition.

Sheffield did demolish its '60's era covered market, but also built a new shiny one in a new location, still within the city centre.

 

Edited March 21, 2022 by Jen-in-Wellies

[Arthur Marshall]

£10k a month means he'd have to make over £300 profit a day to make the rent, if my sums are close. I can't see a butcher managing that. I can't imagine what you'd need to be selling to pay over thirty grand a month in rent, unless it's houses. Isn't it more likely the report is simply wrong?

Surely the council would rather have some rent coming in rather than empty spaces unless as suggested above, they just want to sell the space for development.

[David Mack]

2 hours ago, IanD said:

 

In a statement, Leeds City Council said rents on a single unit at Kirkgate Market ranged from £2,000 to a maximum of £34,314, excluding service charges."

I think those might be annual figures looking at https://www.leeds.gov.uk/leedsmarkets/Trade-on-our-markets/trader-kirkgate

Edited March 21, 2022 by David Mack

[Jen-in-Wellies]

6 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

£10k a month means he'd have to make over £300 profit a day to make the rent, if my sums are close. I can't see a butcher managing that. I can't imagine what you'd need to be selling to pay over thirty grand a month in rent, unless it's houses. Isn't it more likely the report is simply wrong?

Surely the council would rather have some rent coming in rather than empty spaces unless as suggested above, they just want to sell the space for development.

Round the corner from here in a small retail park there was a supermarket. One of the German ones. The private landlord wanted to put up the rent. The supermarket said no and moved out. The unit has been empty ever since. That was six years ago. Some how the logic of rent coming in vs empty space seems to work in a way you, or I don't understand. Presumably, the rent increase from those who cave in to the demand more than balances out those who move out.

 

[David Mack]

The property industry has got too used to upward only rent reviews. There have been a few cases in the news over the last couple of years where retail chains in difficulty have tried to renegotiate rents downwards, and only those stores where the landlord has conceded have remained open.

 

A bizarre Irish example of this:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/21/when-is-a-window-not-a-window-bewleys-cafe-claims-stained-glass-are-moveable-artworks-in-court

Edited March 21, 2022 by David Mack

[Tony Brooks]

Maybe the landlords would be more willing to negotiate the rent downwards  if empty commercial properties were charged a special high rate of council tax. It is not just shops, it is office blocks as well.

[Arthur Marshall]

1 hour ago, David Mack said:

I think those might be annual figures looking at https://www.leeds.gov.uk/leedsmarkets/Trade-on-our-markets/trader-kirkgate

Seems more likely.

6 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

Maybe the landlords would be more willing to negotiate the rent downwards  if empty commercial properties were charged a special high rate of council tax. It is not just shops, it is office blocks as well.

I presume they don't have to pay business rates if not trading? And probably get tax relief on the empty property somehow so they make more money that way. Capitalism is weird.

[Rebotco]

14 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

Seems more likely.

I presume they don't have to pay business rates if not trading? And probably get tax relief on the empty property somehow so they make more money that way. Capitalism is weird.

Well, you presume wrong. 

There is a brief suspension of Business rates for 6 months on empty retail premises, to allow time to find a new tenant.

But then the rates become fully payable by the landlord, so they are actually losing money on their property.

That is why some charity/bookshops get short term rent free shops, especially over the Christmas period.

Although the landlord makes nothing out of them, it at least stops them losing money for a while.

Edited March 21, 2022 by Rebotco

[IanD]

1 hour ago, David Mack said:

I think those might be annual figures looking at https://www.leeds.gov.uk/leedsmarkets/Trade-on-our-markets/trader-kirkgate

That's what I thought too, which means the figure in the article was wrong --wouldn't be surprising, but you'd have thought the journalist might have questioned whether £120k per year rent for a market stall could be correct...

[Arthur Marshall]

26 minutes ago, Rebotco said:

Well, you presume wrong. 

There is a brief suspension of Business rates for 6 months on empty retail premises, to allow time to find a new tenant.

But then the rates become fully payable by the landlord, so they are actually losing money on their property.

That is why some charity/bookshops get short term rent free shops, especially over the Christmas period.

Although the landlord makes nothing out of them, it at least stops them losing money for a while.

That's why the question mark! Always good to be better informed.

[Heartland]

It appears Malcolms rent is about £120,000 per year.

 

He is going to another location as the rent was high and the footfall to his stall had reduced. The butchers seems to be in the newer part of the market. The heritage part looks very different,

 

[Stilllearning]

Am I alone in feeling that ‘heritage’ is an overused word? What is a ‘heritage coast’, as opposed to just the coast?

[IanD]

35 minutes ago, Heartland said:

It appears Malcolms rent is about £120,000 per year.

 

He is going to another location as the rent was high and the footfall to his stall had reduced. The butchers seems to be in the newer part of the market. The heritage part looks very different,

 

Nope, it seems that the article got the annual and monthly rental confused.

 

https://www.leeds.gov.uk/leedsmarkets/Trade-on-our-markets/trader-kirkgate

 

I believe he's in Unit 2 Row 2 (but others are similar) for which rent is £986/month, service charge is £264/month, business rates are £473/month (all plus VAT).

 

£12000 a year (£1000 a month) rent, yes. £120000 a year (£10000 a month), no.

Edited March 22, 2022 by IanD

[Stilllearning]

5 minutes ago, IanD said:

Nope, the article got the annual and monthly rental confused.

 

https://www.leeds.gov.uk/leedsmarkets/Trade-on-our-markets/trader-kirkgate

 

He's in Unit 2 Row 2, rent is £986/month, service charge is £264/month, business rates are £473/month (all plus VAT).

So about £2000 a month?

As I said earlier, ‘how much’ ?!

Business rates on my shop here are €0.

[IanD]

9 minutes ago, Stilllearning said:

So about £2000 a month?

As I said earlier, ‘how much’ ?!

Business rates on my shop here are €0.

 

Why, and where does your local council get its income from instead? The government has chopped back most other sources of income for them, that used to pay for local services like libraries etc... 😞

[Stilllearning]

3 minutes ago, IanD said:

 

Why, and where does your local council get its income from instead? The government has chopped back most other sources of income for them, that used to pay for local services like libraries etc... 😞

Why? Because that’s the way it is, here. The Mairie gets income from household rates, for us about €450 a year, then regional and national grants.

We are a small town, but have a very smart, almost new, multimedia library.

[IanD]

1 hour ago, Stilllearning said:

Why? Because that’s the way it is, here. The Mairie gets income from household rates, for us about €450 a year, then regional and national grants.

We are a small town, but have a very smart, almost new, multimedia library.

Aah, I forgot, not in the UK but somewhere with a government that believes in local councils having some power and funding. How quaint... 😉

[Stilllearning]

5 minutes ago, IanD said:

Aah, I forgot, not in the UK but somewhere with a government that believes in local councils having some power and funding. How quaint... 😉

Yes, but unfortunately the Mayor isn’t quaint, he’s a git.