MARKET traders have been told not to open before 9am on Saturdays after residents complained about early-morning starts.

Stallholders at the Open Market in Brighton’s London Road say they have been trading from 7am on Saturdays for more than 30 years.

But new residents, who moved into purpose-built flats as part of the market’s redevelopment last year, are unhappy after traders opened earlier than their allotted 9am start.

Managers said the 9am start was “on the first page of the licensing document” and the rule was in force since the market re-opened”.

But traders complained they were losing money on the busiest day of the week.

Warren Street, of Streets Cafe, said: “The whole market has been told we can’t open until 9am because the residents don’t like the 7am starts.

“It’s costing all stallholders money. We were told when it was redeveloped that nothing would change. When the residents moved in they knew it was under a market.

“I’m not being funny, but Saturday is the busiest day of the week.

“We were only told last week about the 9am start and haven’t even been given notice. We’re not happy with it.”

Danielle Lysaght, of the Ethical Property Company, managing agent for the market, said: “The opening times for the market and deliveries to the market are set out in the planning conditions for the site. They are repeated in trader licences.”

Licence documents say delivery times at the market are 7am Monday to Friday, 9am on Saturdays and no deliveries on Sundays.

Customers can visit from 9am Monday to Saturday and 10am on Sundays. The historic market, which first opened in 1919, opened again to the public in May last year following a multi-million pound regeneration project.

Developers transformed the once-neglected and barren area into a £20 million shopping hub that includes 45 covered market stalls, a central square for visiting farmers’ markets and a dozen artesian workshops.

Nearly 90 affordable homes were also built.

Background

The Open Market began in the 1880s when barrow boys began selling fruit and vegetables in Oxford Street. Council chiefs attempted to move the sellers from their pitches in the 1920s.

The the ‘battle of Oxford Street’ erupted as a result, with socialist Harry Cowley leading a mass protest against the plans.

The barrow boys were given permission to trade in the central rose-walk of the Level and continued until 1926, when the market moved to Marshall’s Row. The houses on Marshall’s Row were demolished in 1938 and several permanent market stalls were created.

Business boomed until around the 1970s. In 2006 plans for the new site in London Road were drawn up and came to fruition in 2014.