Greetings from Shaun & Tina. Many of you will already know us as owners of Elemental, our fair trade shop in Cumberland Close, Kirriemuir, which was open for 4 years until July 2019.
Our aim to create a local street market grew from countless conversations with customers about which kind of products they would like to be able to buy locally, and what they feel would enhance Kirrie town centre, encouraging people to visit the town more often.
Our intention is to hold a monthly Street Market throughout the year (with an option to move indoors if the weather is blowing a hoolie) We want to give local producers of fresh and seasonal foods a platform to sell direct to local customers and visitors, and local crafts people and entrepeneurs the opportunity to sell and showcase their individual talents.
We believe that shopping locally helps reduce the carbon foot print by using less fuel to travel elsewhere, and increases the opportunity to address environmental issues by being able to buy products which are not wrapped in plastics and other non biodegradeable materials.
But most of all we want to give people more local choices, and enjoy Kirriemuir as a welcoming and fun place to live and visit.
We now hold our Market Operators licence, ensuring that we meet our public liability insurance obligations and comply with all other local authority criteria.
We launched a successful crowdfunding campaign to give us the boost to get up and running, and we would like to thank everyone who supported and contributed to that, especially the team of local help who materialised to share distributing our initial 5000 advertising leaflets to as many addresses in Kirremuir as we could. We have now purchased our own traditional market stalls, and we can hire these out to other events if required.
We have an idea to theme each market so each one becomes an enjoyable unique experience - watch this space.
The first Market was held on Saturday September 1st 2018 - and had a great buzz to it. We have continued on the first Saturday of every month with varied footfall, some months being more successful than others. We have found, unfortunately, that the Angus Council Car Parking charges introduced at the back end of 2018 definitely affected potential customers willingness to pay for parking and spend time visiting both the market and other local retailers in the town. The protests against the parking charges are a local ongoing issue, and while we believe they are only one of the factors in the continuing struggle to keep footfall going in the town centre, they certainly are contributing to the general demise of small retailers at this present time.
We held a 20 questions poll earlier in the year and found that
1. People thought that moving the market to a SUNDAY might overcome resistance to paying for parking as there are no fees in the town car parks on a Sunday.
2’ Stallholders stated that for many of them who have multiple other markets booked on Saturdays, a change to Sunday would enable them to join us in Kirriemuir more often.
3. There is no other regular Sunday market in Angus which operates all year
4. Generally customers were happy with the produce available but would like the market to develop more savoury and vegetarian / vegan choices
5. Relocating to one permanent venue with both indoor and outdoor options for stalls would encourage folk to visit more regularly whatever the weather.
Hence from September 2019 the market has relocated to The Guide Hall, 43 The Roods, Kirriemuir and has much better facilities throughout with good disability access too. We are currently trialling holding the market on the first SUNDAY of every calendar month (except January) and we will re-evaluate the level of support and footfall early in the New Year.
We will continue to use this market page to keep you up to date with everything that is happening - please feedback comments, ideas and share as appropriate
Thank you
Shaun & Tina
