Directory of Leighton Buzzard shops set to be updated to help promote town centre

The A6 document is due to be published in November, Central Bedfordshire Council’s Leighton-Linslade partnership committee was told.

A motion was presented to the meeting by non-aligned Independent Leighton Linslade West councillor Victoria Harvey in support of the town’s 900-year-old market.

It called for a review of the traffic regulation order for the High Street to introduce buses for the Tuesday market, with a rearrangement of the stalls layout. She asked for various activity to increase town centre footfall on a Tuesday during school weeks, as well as throughout the holiday periods.

Her motion was unanimously passed by the committee. The debate followed reaction to a Leighton-Linslade Town Council face-to-face survey conducted with residents in the Spring.

Town clerk Mark Saccoccio explained that a new team has started working on the market, with the opportunity for traders to talk to officers about their ideas.

Speaking after the meeting, councillor Harvey said: “Councillors and officers stressed their support for the market, and made a real effort to find common ground and some practical ways forward.

“There was a feeling there are good ideas in the new market strategy, but there’s a real urgency with the Tuesday market.”

Her motion asked the committee “to note the:

• very worrying and steep decline of the Tuesday market;
• increasing shop vacancies on the High Street;
• reasons for going into the town have reduced through bank closures and the lack of a heritage and visitor centre, as well as the absence of community and cultural premises, and health facilities;
• need to support local farmers and fresh healthy food;
• damage to health caused by social isolation, and the role that the High Street and market plays in reversing social isolation”.

She called on the committee to agree that “reversing the decline of the Tuesday market and supporting the High Street is a priority for it”, and suggestedrecommending to CBC and the town council that “all measures to help the market and the central business area are urgently pursued”.

CBC Liberal Democrat Leighton Linslade South councillor Chris Leaman, who chairs the committee, said there should be a dual approach to deal with the urgency of the Tuesday market, while also seeking to implement some more long-term new ideas.

Councillor Harvey added that the town council’s decision to remove the rubbish collection put an extra £50 per week on the cost for the vegetable stalls at a time when rents have been increasing by 20 per cent over two years.

The town council intends spending a further £10,000 on a consultant for the market policies, after spending about £30,000 on doing up the storage depot in Bell Alley.

She wondered whether “it’s more important to reduce rents because losing stalls is the most expensive cost to the market”, and noted the town council could have taken advantage two years ago of “a big grant, enabling professional musicians to perform regularly there”.