Small business people
don’t really like uncertainty in their lives and renewal at QVM is bringing
plenty of change. Articles like this one are designed to highlight some of the
more positive aspects of the future.
Publicity about QVM renewal earlier this year contained
dialogue around “expansion” of our market. Back in October 2013 the Lord Mayor
talked about “an
expanded market precinct”. In April this year QVM talked about an “expanded
retail offer”.
Given that QVM renewal involves giving up a small parcel of
land at the southern end of the site the expansion aspect needs more
explanation and the answer lays in better use of our current facilities, in
particular, introducing attractive trading opportunities when the market is not
currently operating.
Back in August we published an article about re-invigorating
trading hours (http://www.victraders.com/2014/08/new-trading-hours-back-on-agenda.html).
There has been much discussion about the market trading over 7 days and for
longer hours each day. Obviously it is not intended that every trader would trade all
those hours but that the market would operate in different ways at different
times. In other words QVM could become a series of markets within a market.
In the top end of QVM there has been discussion about the
repetition of the offer – too many stalls selling the same thing, and each
aisle looking the same as the previous one. That is a perception that has to be
addressed. In the current staging of one to one interviews traders are
encouraged to talk about their aspirations for the future, and how they might
take opportunities to improve their businesses. Opening up the dialogue, the
potential, and the opportunities, will require thinking outside the square by
both management and traders.
There is no reason why every current trader cannot be part
of a renewed market that brings with it lots of new opportunities. Renewal is not a threat, it is an opportunity.