Liverpool Traders Hit With £12,000 Christmas Market Pitch Fees

A Liverpool trader says the city's Christmas market quoted him £12,000 for a single stall at St George's Plateau this year — a price he and other local business owners say has priced them out of the event entirely.

Anthony Grice told BBC Radio Merseyside he received the quote after a new operator, Underbelly, took over running the market. He raised the issue directly with Liverpool City Council leader Liam Robinson at a meeting to discuss the plans.

Grice said local traders' concerns were being "swept under the carpet" during that meeting. He said: "I asked how many local traders had signed up, and the council didn't know."

He didn't stop there. "These markets should be a chance to showcase the best of what you've got, but not having the 'Scouse soul' there is so annoying," Grice said. "Aren't our people good enough?"

What does the new pricing mean for small businesses?

Jeweller Alex Healy, from Gateacre, has traded at previous Liverpool Christmas markets since 2021. She rang the BBC Radio Merseyside phone-in to tell Robinson she won't return this year.

"It would cost me in the region of £14,000 to £15,000," Healy said. "I have the smallest hut available, but that price I physically cannot afford it."

She said she's acutely aware of the cost-of-living crisis facing her customers. "I don't want to raise my prices. I shouldn't have to," she said.

Robinson said he wants entrepreneurs like Healy to succeed and invited her to meet him to look at ways the council could support her business.

Why did the council pick Underbelly?

Robinson said he had met business owners to "understand the challenges and the issues that they might have had this year" so the authority could look at different options in future.

He confirmed the council knew about the price structure Underbelly was offering traders when the company won the contract. The council also gets a share of some of the income, he added.

Underbelly won the tender "on quality and price," Robinson said, and has a "track record of delivering these markets successfully in lots of other places across the country." Underbelly has been contacted for comment.

How are political rivals responding?

Carl Cashman, leader of the Liberal Democrat opposition group on the council, called the £14,000 figure "a rip-off."

"Small businesses are feeling the pinch at the moment, with rising business rates, inflation, and payroll costs, and consumers spending less," Cashman said. "So £14,000 is just a risk too big for them to take, and the market won't be as good for it."

What alternatives are on offer?

A Liverpool city council spokesperson pointed to other selling opportunities for local traders. Local traders can sell artisan goods at:

• A street market on Basnett Street, running every Saturday in November
• Regular and pop-up markets in Lark Lane
• Regular and pop-up markets in Woolton Village in the run-up to Christmas

Whether those smaller venues can absorb traders who once anchored the main market remains the open question. Robinson's pledge to "look at different options in future" signals the council may face pressure to rethink the Underbelly deal — or the pricing it permits — before next year's event.