Above: Coun Stuart Langhorn accepts a petition protesting against Lancaster Market’s closure earlier this month
Local Liberal Democrat leader Stuart Langhorn has hit back at suggestions that his party is to blame for plans to close Lancaster Market.
“Closing the market is not a Liberal Democrat idea,” Langhorn, who is also leader of Lancaster City Council, told virtual-lancaster, responding to various news reports on the issue over the past few weeks.
Langhorn is aware that many people might perhaps only take into account that Conservative Cabinet member Malcolm Thomas and he proposed and seconded what became a controversial Cabinet suggestion to push for a single retailer solution to the Market building’s ongoing financial problems in February. But he argues this motion, discussed at Full Council recently, has to be “contextualised” in relation to previous two years of work that Cabinet had been doing to try and find a solution to the near £500,000 costs of the Market.
“A decision such as the single trader option does not suddenly appear out of nowhere and has been worked upon by officers over the whole of that time,” says Coun Langhorn. “As I have said, there are rules about business that is brought to the Cabinet. If a decision is made then the six month rule comes into play – meaning that a policy revisited in that time frame (another example would be the Allotments Task Group report).
“When the report came to Cabinet in February there had been no indication (apart from Coun Barry) that anyone else on the Cabinet were unhappy with the proposals most of them had previously agreed to,” he says.
“My view is that both Coun Thomas and myself worked within the restrictions imposed by the previous Cabinet and the report produced outlined a range of options. The majority of Cabinet supported the single trader option.
“It is quite right that the Cabinet consider the new information proposed by the market traders – and we are doing this,” he adds.
Langhorn also reiterates earlier comments made to local residents who expressed concern at the plans to close the Market, but who were also worried by the ongoing costs of the building to taxpayers. He makes it clear he wants to find a “sustainable venue” for the Market
“It’s a shame that some other politicians would rather mislead the public on this in order to gain in the short term. The issue has been on the agenda since December 2008 and no councillor has come up with an alternative way of reducing the deficit.
“The reality is if we do not sort out the market position we would have to look elsewhere for the money – parks, play areas, plays schemes, theatres and so on. That’s why we have to get this thing sorted – and in a way that supports independent traders.
The Liberal Democrat leader, who is also prospective parliamentary candidate for Lancaster and Fleetwood at the next election says he hopes common ground can be found between all parties and a solution worked out for all concerned.
“Working together is the route I wanted to take – and now can,” he says. “If you look back you will find the Liberal Democrats have previously supported the single floor market option.”
I'm sure Cllr. Langhorn will be grateful to me for extending his narrative to make events more clear.
The Cabinet decision [7 for and 2 against] on February 16 was made on the basis of the report provided to us during the meeting. It quickly became apparent after the meeting that there was information in the public arena which was not included in the report. That information had a bearing on the risk inherent in the plan presented to us, and its absence from the report led to Cllr. Thomas resigning from Cabinet.
The search for a single tenant for the Market building began at least as long ago as January 2008, when Cabinet was advised that a single tenant would be willing to pay the same rent that the City Council was then paying to its Landlord. Renting to such a tenant thus offered at that time the prospect of totally eliminating the annual deficit on running the Market, and was an option that had to be investigated. Implementing a lease to a single tenant was clearly to be conditional on satisfying the existing market traders. In Council on 3 March this year, I said "The report on the options for advising, supporting, and assisting market tenants that Cabinet asked for two years ago – in January 2008, when I was Leader of the Council – has yet to be received…. I am shocked and disappointed to discover that the actions supporting the Market Traders that were outlined in the cabinet resolution of 16 February (2010) now appear to be hollow and lacking in substance."
Cllr. Langhorn seems to be persisting with these inadequate options for support to the Market Tenants in the face of the evidence.
He also mis-states the rules about business that is brought to the Cabinet – by failing to say that the "six-month" rule to which he refers does not apply when a sufficient number of Cabinet members so request.
Cllr. J. R. Mace
Cllr. Mace seems reluctant to admit that the single trader option was his idea. If you check back in the minutes he recommended the single trader scheme in 2008. He is now blaming someone else and has resigned from Cabinet. How does he expect anyone to take the Conservatives seriously if they walk away from their responsibilities?
Cllr. Mace’s personal attack on Cllr. Langhorn is unwarranted. It was Cllr., Mace who originally moved the single trader option 2 years ago. He should stop his attacks on the person who is trying to sort out the mess left when he resigned as leader.
He was on the Cabinet during that six months – why didn’t he say he had changed his mind?