Fight for market share

Hawke's Bay Farmers' Market chairman Mark Verry said in an email to the council there were fears the new venture would take a toll on the established Sunday market. Photo / Thinkstock

Hastings District Council has approved a road closure that will see the launch of a new Saturday morning "growers market" in the city - a move that has raised concerns from operators of other markets in the district.

Councillors voted yesterday to close the first two blocks of Heretaunga St East from 7am to 11am on Saturday mornings for the new Hastings City Growers Market, an initiative of the Hastings City Business Association.

The proposal had raised concerns from the Hawke's Bay Farmers' Market, which is based at the Hawke's Bay Showgrounds on Sundays and has run for 14 years, and from Havelock North's Black Barn market.

Both existing markets expressed their concerns about the proposed new venture to the council.

But Hastings Mayor Lawrence Yule told councillors yesterday they were not able to consider "trade competition" issues when deciding the merits of the road closure application.

The Business Association said the Saturday morning initiative followed on from the Thursday night market it held in the CBD and would "enable locals to access the wonderful abundance of fresh produce grown in our region by other locals".

But Hawke's Bay Farmers' Market chairman Mark Verry said in an email to the council there were fears the new venture would take a toll on the established Sunday market.

He said if 10 stallholders left the Sunday market, "it would severely compromise us financially".

Another concern was that stallholders would run out of produce on Saturday and then "simply not turn up" to the Sunday market.

In another email to the council, Black Barn's events manager, Francis de Jager, described the Heretaunga St East market proposal as a "further example of continued dilution of community resources by individual organisations pushing their own barrow without the thought, support or dialogue with existing successful Hasting District and Hawke's Bay event stakeholders".

But when the concerns from the other markets were raised at yesterday's council meeting, Mr Yule said trade competition issues were "not something we can consider as part of this process".