Ridley Road fee hikes could ‘break’ historic market, council hears

Ridley Road has been a mainstay in Dalston since the 1880s. Photograph: Facundo Arrizabalaga/MyLondon

Hackney Council is pressing on with a fee hike for street market traders after a last-ditch attempt to stall the policy over fears it would push local businesses out.

This year the local authority officially increased the cost for traders selling at staple street markets like Chatsworth, Broadway and Ridley Road to do business, with the latter facing rises between seven and 20 per cent.

The council said this is so it can balance the books amid rising costs such as management and waste collection. But opposition councillors from the Green and the Independent Socialist groups this week triggered a review (‘call-in’) of the policy, arguing that it was unclear, lacked evidence and risked “breaking” the historic Ridley Road.

Shoppers at the market. Photograph: Facundo Arrizabalaga/MyLondon

The council says this is the first time it is raising fees since 2019 and that it must do so for the service to break even. By law it cannot subsidise any markets by using tax or reserves. The local authority has told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) most only face small daily increase of between £1-4 per day.

But Cllr Zoë Garbett (Green) said Ridley Road, a “community and commercial anchor” providing “affordable fresh food” to impoverished residents, would be unfairly hit by the fee increase. She urged for a policy change that accounted for its disproportionately Black and Global Majority, migrant and low-income traders and customers.

Cllr Claudia Turbet-Delof (Independent Socialist) added that the council risked “breaking” the market and warned the fee increase could be the “final push that forces them out”.

The council has twice consulted with traders about increasing their fees, and paused its first consultation after warnings that it would make businesses unaffordable. It later came back with with revised plans that wiped £500,000 off the amount traders in total would have to pay for waste collection.

The LDRS visited Ridley Road in October 2025 and spoke to businesses who said they feared the fee hikes would force them out of business. One clothes merchant, Mohammed Shafique, urged the council to cut its staffing costs instead. Scott Lomax, who as a fruit and veg seller faces the steepest increase in waste collection charges, told the LDRS: “I just don’t understand how the projections could be cut like that. We can’t get a straight answer out of the council.”

At Monday’s scrutiny meeting, council officers said Hackney remained a “borough of choice” for many traders, with Ridley Road in particular still “comparatively cheaper than other markets” to run a stall.

Head of Hackney Markets Daniel O’Sullivan said the council was spending more than other authorities Ridley Road and other street markets amid a £400,000 rise in waste collection costs. Compared to other boroughs, he said, Hackney offered more hands-on service to support its bazaars, including set-up and takedown, waste management, business support and social media.

“Without this, Hackney would not have been able to oversee the five years of growth versus the decline across the sector,” he said.

The opposition criticised the council for not sharing the levels of footfall at Ridley Road in its policy, adding that traders reported its halving over the last five years and blaming this in part on the closure of the nearby Colvestone Primary School and the introduction of low-traffic neighbourhoods. However, O’Sullivan said “that one particular street” saw over 4m visitors in 2024/25, offering “significant” opportunities for market stalls.

A stall at the entrance of the market. Facundo Arrizabalaga/MyLondon

While UK-wide figures showed only 9% of transactions were made with cash in 2024, the markets chief said roughly half of Ridley Road traders “still will not use a digital payment device” despite the council’s efforts to encourage this.

Defending the policy, Cabinet Member for Community Safety and Regulatory Services, Susan Fajana-Thomas (Labour) took issue with the opposition’s warnings over the adverse impact on Black and Global Majority traders.

“I’m from that community and sometimes it is actually patronising. Black people are entrepreneurs – they go into the market like any other people […] There’s nothing wrong with Black people who cannot compete in a competitive business situation.”

She added that the council had proven it was listening to traders by having “paused and reviewed” the policy already. The markets chief, meanwhile, said the council offered free “successful” business growth support programs for traders who faced “intersectional” challenges.

In the end, the council’s scrutiny panel – made up of four Labour members and one Green – overall ruled that the policy was made correctly and stuck with the fee increases.

In the end, a majority of the council’s scrutiny panel ruled that the policy was made correctly and stuck with the fee increases. The LDRS understands four Labour members voted to uphold, and one Green member voted to for Cabinet to review the decision.

Ridley Road has been open in Dalston since the late 1880s.

Note: this article was amended on 22 January at 9.16 to add the breakdown of votes.