Demise of the 'people's market'

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By Mona McAlinden BBC Scotland news website Paddy's Market traders carried a coffin to protest against its closure outside Glasgow's City Chambers on Friday

Patsy Woodward is relocating.

The 60-year-old Glaswegian is setting up her new snack bar at the city's Barras market, after a reluctant departure from her eatery on the nearby Shipbank Lane.

For 200 years, the lane had been home to Paddy's Market, until its traders were forced to pack up for good on Thursday.

Patsy's comment that she had "only been there for 20 years" brings the longevity of the market into focus.

"That's nothing - my husband was in his shawl there, 67 years ago," she added.

She says she is choked up about the demise of the place she and other tenants called the 'people's market'.

Patsy has now moved to the Barras after two decades at Paddy's Market

"It was a community of people that had been built up over years; there had always been threats from the council but I never thought it would come to this," she said: "especially with the recession.

"Where will the old folk go now? People went there for years for a chat or a bit of advice."

Glasgow City Council claimed its closure would address concerns about crime in the area, but Patsy said it was unnecessary and put the livelihoods of scores of people in jeopardy.

"There were 80 leases at Paddy's Market - a lot of them will now have to sign on," she said.

"I would have lost my house if I didn't get this stall at the Barras - and I've worked hard my whole life for that house.

"Who would give a 60-year-old a job nowadays?"

The council's decision to close the Market, which one councillor had described as a "crime-ridden midden", is seen as a betrayal by the traders.

"The council told us face-to-face in November that it wouldn't be closed," Patsy said.

Generations of families had stalls underneath the railway arches

"They set up a meeting with a market adviser from England and we talked about renovation and security ideas.

"Then they stabbed us in the back, closed the place and have came up with some plan for the area that will never work."

The council has taken over the lease with a rent of £100,000 per year.

It said it would transform the area to accommodate artists' studios and a wider range of traders such as arts and craft stalls.

"No offence to the arty farty types who'll take over, but we're streetwise - we knew how to deal with the junkies and drug dealers who'll still be hanging round long after Paddy's Market's gone," Patsy said.

A number of stall holders blamed the residents of an adjacent homeless hostel for tarring the whole area as a crime hotspot.

One, who did not want to be named, said: "There were a lot of good honest traders at the market.

"Other parts of Glasgow have problems with crime but we were unfairly targeted.

Some of the former Paddy's Market traders have set up stalls at the Barras

"We had come up with ways to make the area more secure but the council ignored our suggestions to block off lanes and vet traders."

Former Paddy's Market customer Rose Keating is making her way through the Barras, as some of the traders she knows set up their new stalls.

The 58-year-old from the Calton area of the city had been a customer at Shipbank Lane for years, as had her mother and grandmother.

"It's a sad day," she said.

"I don't know what kind of customers they'll expect to get at the new Camden Market-type place, but people here haven't got that kind of money... they can't afford to pay £40 for shoes.

"I could get a jumper at Paddy's Market for 50p."

'Intimidating place'

Another Barras and Paddy's Market regular, who did not want to be named, said: "There's a danger of it happening here, of the Barras being closed too - the writing's on the wall.

"The city council want to gentrify the place, to make it a clone of every other city; they don't care that these places are part and parcel of the local people's way of life.

"It belongs to Glasgow but it supposedly doesn't suit Glasgow."

There are many in the city who are pleased to see the closure of Paddy's Market, not least the taxi driver on the way over, who described it as "one of the most intimidating places in Glasgow".

He added: "Maybe it was good 200 years ago but it should've been closed down ages ago."

Back at the Barras, and Patsy is frantically trying to prepare a buffet for her daughter's art exhibition, opening in Govan that day.

"It's for the arty farty types," she says with a smile.