Complete the survey online, or fill out a leaflet and drop it off with one of the survey collection points listed below
We’re looking into the idea of a new weekly market for Chatsworth Road and we need your views. All survey entries received before May 21st will be entered into a £50 prize draw, but responses received after that date will still be gratefully received.
15,000 leaflets distributed locally
Thanks to everyone for their comments – the idea of a new market has certainly got people talking.
And we’d like to emphasise that ‘talking’ is all that’s happening right now. We launched this survey with the aim of facilitating a debate on a new market – not because we have any plans to imminently launch a new market ourselves.
It’s clear from the comments we’ve seen here, and from talking to people face-to-face, that local residents and traders care passionately about their community and their high street. We respect that. We feel the same way.
The volunteers running this website and the current Chatsworth market survey are part of the same community. Some of us have lived or worked in the area for 25 years, some have arrived much more recently. Some of us are traders, some of us are residents. One thing we have in common is a desire to see Chatsworth Road succeed – now and in the future – with the benefits shared amongst all of the local community.
What benefits?
Well, benefits like still having a high street in ten years time. In an age of relentless supermarket expansion and creeping shop closures there are no guarantees that local high streets such as Chatsworth Road will survive without community-led initiatives. Benefits like improving community links throughout the area by getting more people to shop, meet and talk on their local high street. Benefits like maybe helping create local employment and encouraging local entrepreneurship – market stalls may offer a good way for new businesses that can’t afford a shop lease to get off the ground.
We love Chatsworth Road’s character and diversity. Maybe a new weekly market could enhance what’s already there? Could it create new opportunities for local people? Could it help further bring the community together? Or could it create more problems?
We’re not claiming to have all the answers. This is the start of a debate and you’re invited to take part, as is the rest of the community.
25 survey collection points
To try and engage as many people as possible we enlisted the help of 30 volunteers at a public meeting on 30th April. They’ve been distributing 12,000 leaflets door-to-door throughout the community.
A further 3,000 leaflets have been distributed via shop counters on Chatsworth Road, Homerton High Street, Lower Clapton Road, Gilpin Road, and other streets.
We’ve set up this website, with an online version of the survey, and we’ve tried our best to promote the web address in local press, on the leaflets and on neighbourhood posters.
For people who’d prefer to give their views on paper we’ve arranged a network of collection points for the completed survey leaflets. We’re extremely grateful to the following shops, schools and venues for displaying posters and acting as collection points:
1. Homerton Library – Broosksby’s Walk
2. A&S Cycles – Chatsworth Road
3. Lucky Newsagents – Chatsworth Road
4. Greggs Butchers – Chatsworth Road
5. Regal Pharmacy – Chatsworth Road
6. L’epicerie at 56 – Chatsworth Road
7. Venetia’s Coffee Shop – Chatsworth Road
8. Carnival Cards – Chatsworth Road
9. Clapton Dental Surgery – Chatsworth Road
10. Chatsworth Laundrette – Chatsworth Road
11. Brothers Supermarket – Chatsworth Road
12. Chetan & Chirag News – Chatsworth Road / Powerscroft Road
13. The Elderfield pub – Elderfield Road
14. Pages bookshop – Lower Clapton Road
15. Saf’s barbershop – Lower Clapton Road
16. Organic & Natural – Lower Clapton Road
17. Marsh Hill News – Marsh Hill
18. Argun Printers & Stationers – Mare Street, Hackney Central
19. Millfields Convenience store – Millfields Road
20. Silverfield’s chemist – Kingsmead Way
21. Clapton Park Neighbourhood Office – Gilpin Road
22. J.P. Foodstores – Gilpin Road
23. Rushmore Primary School – Rushmore Road / Elderfield Road
24. Millfields Community School – Hillsea Street
25. Daubney Primary School – Daubney Road
55 extra posters displayed locally
We’ve put up posters on residential streets advertising these collection points. We would’ve arranged more of them but many other outlets we approached felt they were unable to participate due to limited space or having too many staff to coordinate.
Finally, we’re aware that doing a written survey is a limited exercise. So if you’re part of a local tenants association, or a service user group, or a cultural group, and you’d like us to come and hear your views on the idea of a new market, please email us. We’d love to hear from you.
After May 21st we’ll begin collating the information from the surveys, before reporting back at a future meeting of the Traders & Residents Association. This meeting will be open to all and is a chance to discuss the possible next steps – we’ll make sure it’s publicised up here, well in advance, and via the fast developing mailing list.
In the meantime, good luck in the prize draw!
sounds like a good idea!…
I think the Chatsworth Road market would be a great thing to have. It would put the area on the map, be a great place to hang out and it would be so great to shop at a local market just around the corner. I love it and I hope it will be made possible.
Great idea. Would love to have a market round the corner. Chatsworth Road is made for this kind of thing. The whole comunity will benefit from it. Would be great to have a stage for comedians, actors, poets, etc on it.
I completed the survey form but it has recently appeared in my kitchen having been forgotten and not submitted. In several places you invite us to complete the survey online but I have seen no links or directions how to do this.
Second point:
I have submitted a lengthy and well considered contribution to the discussion elsewhere on this site. The item lasted about a week before it was removed without explanation.
Third point:
We receive no news or reminders about upcoming meetings. On July 13th I noticed an item in the Hackney Gazette about the July14th meeting. When I discussed this next day, with a person who I know to have a lively interest in Chats Rd., he was horrified to find that it was too late for him to change plans and attend the meeting.
Other online communities have no difficulty in keeping in touch with their contributors/members. Do you have difficulty seeing the need for this?
Apologies for the late reply to your post – we are indeed not yet as organised as we should be, and publicity for meetings is an area in which we’re trying to improve.
However, for the July 14th meeting at Chats Palace, we did use our mailing list to send out an email notification well in advance. If you didn’t receive that email perhaps you could resubmit your contact details to us as we may not have the correct email address for you.
Re. your previous submissions – they are still on the website, as are all submissions received so far. The website simply archives older blogs and comments. If you scroll right down to the very end of the visible entries you can see a small subtitle saying ‘older entries’. Just click on that.
Re. submission of online surveys – throughout May and early June we had a ‘Survey’ menu option in the top right hand corner of the main wesbite page, just by the option that says ‘About Us’. Despite our testing the function in various ways before we launched the survey it become apparent by the end that a few people could not ’see’ that menu option – it may have related to a problem with browser compatibility, we’re not sure.
You make a valid criticism of the survey leaflets – they did unfortunately lack clear instructions on how to return them. We tried to address that problem by arranging for 28 survey collection points to display posters in shop wondows, and we also put up 50 posters on residential streets explaining where the nearest survey collection points were located. Please accept our apologies on both fronts.
We are including the website comments in the survey report we’re writing up now, so your views will be represented, even if you did not submit a survey.
Thanks.
Hello.
i couldnt find the online survey – i assume for the resons you have mentioned Simon, but I live just off Millfields road and shop very regularly on Chatsworth… so would love there to be a street market!
I would love Chatsworth Road Market to be re-instated!! I remember it well when I was a child you could buy all you needed from nuts and bolts to school uniform and music… my family had their own fruit and veg stalls there… great for the community in more ways than one!!