Today Wed 1 May, Newham Council has officially reopened Stratford Market Village in the presence of several market traders whom we have been supporting since the market abruptly closed in January.
Stratford Market Village, a local independent marketplace closed overnight on Monday 10 January and the Council has been working with the 60 traders whose livelihoods were snatched abruptly to reopen the market for trade again.
Newham Council Cabinet approved the proposal to enter into a 15-month lease and unlock the reopening of the Market Village at the beginning of April. Since then we have been working hard to finalise all the legal and operational matters to ensure market traders’ leases are updated along with making sure the market building is structurally sound to ensure traders can resume working in the building safely. The lease agreement has now been signed and finalised meaning that the market is now re-opened.
Stratford Market Village is a cherished asset part of Stratford's unique heritage that we want to protect at all costs. The reopening of the market forms for our local community is an essential part of our community wealth-building principles that we have managed to successfully deliver with support from GLA Good Growth Funding which we managed to reroute from an existing project that no longer required the additional £700K to deliver the revised outputs.
The traders who weren’t able to trade over the past four months have suffered great losses during the market closure so we would like to urge everyone to visit the market and continue to shop and support local from next week.
Muhammad Awais Amjad, owner of AEG Technologies LTD in Market Village said: “The past four months have been really tough on me and my family emotionally and financially. I was almost at the end of my savings at this stage so I am really relieved and happy that the market is reopened so we can start trading again. We have made some substantial losses but I am hoping we can regain our customers back and get back to do what we do best again.”
There are over 60 traders that will slowly be resuming their businesses, offering essentials from fresh food and vegetables, electronic gadgets, deli meat and homemade delicacies from pies to the infamous curry chips so please do visit the market on Monday – Saturday 9 am- 6.30 pm and Sunday 11 am- 5 pm.