St Johns Market

On Wednesday the 20^th our comrade Chris was at a demonstration outside the Cunard buildings aimed at the Liverpool City Council against the immediate closure of St Johns Markets. A council well-known for its corruption and duplicity that has attempted to blame the St Johns Market traders’ unpaid fees for forcing them to close St John’s and not the myriad problems that have occurred since the unnecessary revamp of the once popular market.

Like many burgeoning city centres Liverpool’s began with market trading. Originally it had a popular street market where people from all over Merseyside and Lancashire came to buy and sell. By the early 1800’s the markets popularity had already seen it begun to grow far too large for the area which it used, spreading off the normal south end of Castle street into the transport thoroughfare causing disruption in the area. The Liverpool Corporation (pre-city council) sought to rectify, and modernise, the issues of an overgrown street market by building one of the first fully enclose and roofed market halls. They chose to build this new market on the St Johns site. Named after the St Johns Church (which was demolished in 1898). The building of the market commenced in 1820, costing £35,000 and opened in 1822. The original building stayed open, aside some alterations, until it’s demolition in 1964 to be replaced by the St Johns Shopping Arcade that we see today. The market took its place inside the arcade alongside the modern-day vendors. Still keeping its popularity even with the more modern shopping centre underneath.

The trouble began when the decision was made to refurbish the market in 2016. All the promises of new toilets, inviting stalls and a lift all turned into costly failures with flooding toilets, unappealing storage unit like stalls with cheap shutters and a broken elevator. The £2.5 million revamp was dismal failure from day one. The covid lockdowns may have had a hand in some of the losses that the traders incurred but this only compounded the issues caused by the botched refurb with the footfall greatly decreasing.
I remember myself and my wife visiting the market a year or so after the refurb. As we walked in, we were met with clinical bright whiteness and closed shutters. It felt empty and imposing, We left immediately.

In comparison we regularly visit Greatie (Great Homer Street) market which is like a festival of scouse humour, joviality, and cheap bundles of socks. Greatie is a semi-indoor market that doesn’t have the history or facilities of St Johns.

This is far from the only instance of Liverpool City Council (LCC) devastating proud local traditions in search of profits. Recently several health and leisure centres have been closed because they don’t create enough of a profit. Vital services in the city fail or are removed such as the One-stop shops, used for locals for council enquiries and advice, have been mostly shut down leaving only a few open with short opening times.
Our history and heritage is rotting away with no input from the council. Grade 2 listed buildings bought by private enterprises and allowed to disintegrate till there’s nothing left to save.
All of this is masked by living walls and crap European song contests that fund nothing but the pockets of some.

LCC are blaming St Johns Market traders for not repaying the £1.7million in rent arrears dating back to 2020. The traders had asked to converse with the LCC over a settlement and future rent agreements. Due to the loss of trade the lots were most certainly not worth the council’s price. Apparently the LCC refused to meet with traders as a collective, only singularly. Obviously attempting to break up the strength of a unified workforce.

With most high streets now being made up of clothes shops, café or restaurants, markets are a welcome change from being forced into supermarket shopping with shelves and shelves of average foods, whereas markets still have specialised stalls like a butchers or fishmongers.
As with everything within a capitalist economy it has to be able to offer a large profit or it is no longer seen as viable. St Johns Market had been modernised in an attempt to make it more shop than stall and charge the traders large rents. The LCC spent as little as possible in its creation to eek out those large profits, but when they realised their costly mistake, they had no idea how to fix it because they only think in terms of profit. They could of permanently decreased the rent to a price that suited or they could of used surplus from another venture to amend the issues they caused, but no they decided to shut the market instead. Leaving them with a large space they still had over a 50 year lease on (Yes the prominent Liverpool city centre shopping precinct is privately owned).
Recently LCC has also closed the leisure centres because they couldn’t create enough of a profit without even a consideration of how, like the markets, they are helpful to the local community. Instead they act like private businesses’ and only cater to students, stag do’s and tourists.

The problems caused by LCC are part of the wider problems of British capitalism. The worker is seen only as a way to create profit, not only by the bourgeoisie but by any and all organisations that have some form of profit motive. That’s why the leisure centres in Liverpool are being closed down. Workers need these facilities to keep themselves healthy. Gym’s, swimming bath etc. Because they don’t see a decent revenue stream it doesn’t seem worthwhile to those who run the council. The different parts of society are atomised, so a worker’s health and ability to contribute to society via good work doesn’t come into account. Whereas each different part of the country will seek to profit from the workers leaving them unhealthy, skint and miserable. The markets are no different. The community spirit, the independent trading (free from corporate domination) do not come into account when adding up the numbers.
This why we are losing everything we hold dear like St Johns Market.