Nottingham's Victoria Market was once a bustling hub in the city but now it's a lonely 'ghost town'

A slippery pool of some unknown, unappealing, off-yellow liquid gathers on an empty floor, fed by the regular drip-dripping from a wonky ceiling tile above. 

In better times someone would have noticed by now. This part of the Victoria Market would have been humming with customers and every stall would have had a trader behind it.

Today the market is virtually empty. The space that once reverberated with the sounds of selling and buying, of shouting traders and nattering customers, is now so quiet you can hear the water drop on the floor from the ceiling above. 

In better times the whole market was buzzing, and busy, and loud, and lively, whenever you dropped by. At least, that’s how I remember it in the 90s.

A leak would have been fixed. The ceiling might not have been wonky in the first place. At least, that’s how I imagine it looking back.

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But the money isn’t being spent and the oddjobs aren’t getting done. The problems have been building up, the leaks have not been plugged, and over the years, drip by drip, the centre has watched its customers, and its traders, and its identity, slowly seeping away.

After years of decline and many - including stallholders - say, neglect, the shutters of the Victoria Market are set to be pulled down for the last time. And with them a whole era will be brought to a close.

Not just for the market. But for Nottingham. And the very concept that independent traders selling down-to-earth, affordable goods have a place in the city among the overbearing, increasingly overpriced corporate chains that dominate Britain’s high streets.

It is the day after Nottingham City Council, which owns the market, confirmed the bad news, and I am having a look around. I see the many empty stalls. I see the leaky, wonky ceiling tiles; the shabby walls, the out-of-use toilets, and the cracks around the shuttered facades.

The traders aren’t saying much. Perhaps it is the fear of saying the wrong thing with tough conversations about leases still to be had. Perhaps there was just too much press attention that day.

"It's time to call it a day"

But one who is willing to talk, Carole Lilley, who runs a stall selling nightwear, underwear and racy lingerie, says that the end of the Victoria Market marks the end of her long-term plans there.

“This was meant to be my pension,” she tells me. “If it was like it was in the 1990s I’d probably stay on longer, and then sell the business. But the way things are in here you can’t sell anything. 

“It was a vibrant market in the 90s and 80s. I think it’s time to call it a day.”

'Ghost town'

Walking around towards the rear, near the entrance of the Frothy Coffee café, I hear a man tell his wife: “It’s like a ghost town in here int’it?”

There’s no question that the market is in a bad way. One market stallholder reckoned that out of 400 units, only 26 are occupied at the moment. And that seemed like a positive estimate - but then you can’t tell if a lot of them are open or not.

Too little too late

Another was frank that nothing could save the market now - that it’s just too late to turn it around.

“They can’t afford to spend the amount of money that they need to spend,” the stallholder tells me. “They can’t renovate the lifts, they can’t do the air-conditioning, they can’t do the toilets, the plinths are falling to pieces. Too much money’s needed to put it into the 21st century.”

Maybe the Victoria Market isn’t fit for the 21st century. Maybe the 21st century hasn’t been kind to the Victoria Market. 

Through a rough compound of changing retail habits, the wider woes at the Victoria Centre and its former owner intu, the devastation of lockdown on trade and, now, the huge financial pressures on Nottingham City Council, the market has taken quite a battering.

Now what’s left is essentially an outward-facing strip of stalls all of which seem to be occupied, a half-full tranche of units one row back, and then, pretty much, nothing. 

Naturally the best and most expensive spots face out onto the concourse of the Victoria Centre to catch the passing footfall. 

There you find the Madhouse Nut Centre, selling all sorts of nuts, sweets, dried fruits, seeds and baking ingredients for a fraction of the prices you’ll find in the supermarkets. There’s Tick King watch repairs (market traders love a pun); the Gold Bank, offering private buying rooms; a greetings card and gift shop; an ice cream and desserts stall, and so on.

Further into the market only those that can pull the customers in are still trading. So there is a huge queue for the hot food served at the Island Delight Caribbean Food & Drink kiosk. There is a queue for Al Halal Meats, in the area at the back once filled with butchers and fishmongers.

And nearby, though it is closed when I walk around, at the Frothy Coffee café the smell of stale deep-fried chips, flaky pastry pies and red plastic-bottle ketchup still lingers amid the all-in-one table and chair units. 

There’s a Christmas menu on at the moment: a full Turkey dinner, plus mince pies or a slice of Christmas cake, plus a free raffle ticket to win one of three Christmas hampers. For £7.99.

A time for community spirit

For decades the Victoria Market has been more than just a place of trade. It’s a little community. A place of familiar faces, simple down-to-earth food, and vital, affordable goods for those on low incomes. 

Which at the moment feels more necessary than ever. For the poorest people in Nottingham the Victoria Market is a lonely island refuge in a rising sea of rising prices and cost-of-living crises that has buried so many small independent businesses. Even Wilkos couldn’t survive it.

Step outside the entrance into the modern concourse of the Victoria Centre, and you see what the market’s up against. Its neighbours either side are Next and River Island - two national chains with deep pockets able to weather economic storms.

Interestingly, downstairs, where part of the market used to be before it was confined to the upper floor, the entire strip of retail units is empty. The temporary fascia promises that ‘Something exciting is coming soon’. But that may just be window dressing.

Yes, the Victoria Market has been rocked by some inescapable forces: Covid, the increasing dominance of ecommerce, and the long-term problems with Nottingham’s retail property scene.

But many of the challenges the market and its owner have faced, you find in every town and city in Britain. Yet other towns and cities have managed to maintain their old markets, even rejuvenate them into thriving places of trade and community life - just look at the transformation works going on at Derby Market Hall.

It’s easy to say that more should have been done to save the Victoria Market, even relocating it if that was the only option. It surely isn’t too simple to say though that with enough will, and smart investment and management, the Victoria Market could have been saved.

Cold, dark, reality

But with a brutal program of cuts announced earlier in the week by the now effectively-bankrupt Nottingham City Council, there is no chance of that happening now. As I leave the Victoria Centre the freezing mid-December rain hits me. It is cold and dark and chaotic in the city and the rush-hour streets are beginning to flood. 

The storms lashing Nottingham have brought cold rains seeping through the cracks all the way through to the floor of the shabby Victoria Market.

On my way home I think back to a conversation I had overheard in the market, between two stallholders having a lively - alright, angry - discussion about the council. I had caught one of them saying, “If they want to take my stall away they can come and see me”. 

Sadly, it seems inevitable now that they will be coming to see that stallholder, and all those still clinging on, with the bad news. 

And with that the shutters will finally come down on an embattled refuge against the near-total corporatisation of retail; on a waning community, a shelter from the cost-of-living crisis, and a quaint little corner of the city centre that might have been saved if only the drip-dripping leaks had been stopped in time.