• LAST week was a bad one for the once flourishing Queen’s Crescent Market, less than double figure numbers of stalls on the two market days combined.

No doubt the Camden’s excuse will be “the wrong sort of weather”. However there is a very serious health and safety risk to customers and the few stallholders alike.

Vehicles, other than those of stallholders’, are excluded from the crescent from 7am until 5.30pm on Thursdays and 6pm on Saturdays. The traffic management system operated by the council “market team” has collapsed.

The gate at the east end was rammed by a car several weeks ago and remains unrepaired. Side gates are left open, and, more worryingly, we are told that the “market team” open all the gates at 4pm.

Readers may remember a New Journal piece earlier this year which revealed that the council had collected £26,000 in fines in one year from drivers for violating the restrictions because the gates were left open.

Last week residents and stall holders observed vehicles speeding through the crescent throughout both days. Their attempts to prevent drivers accessing the crescent were not always thanked politely. Members of the “market team” were noticeable by their absence.

Many residents have written to the “market team” manager and ward councillors on several occasions with no effect. There is, however, a chink of light in that the council received a grant of £1.2million back in February from the GLA.

Perhaps some of this could be used urgently to make the crescent safe for the few remaining stallholders and customers, even though the cost should come from “routine” maintenance. Health and safety should be the major priority of the “management” of the market.

MICK FARRANT
NW5