Liverpool’s most original and friendly community market needs your help

Liverpool’s Granby Street Market needs your help, after a fire destroying nearly all of their market equipment at the beginning of September.

Run entirely by volunteers, the team need to replace all of their gazebos, tables, chairs and even sound equipment to get the market going again. The whole lot is going to cost close to £30,000 and that’s why they need your help over the next 30 days.

Granby Street Market opened in 2010 with a handful of tables outside residents’ houses on Cairns Street, and now they fill the Princes Avenue end of Granby Street on the first Saturday of the month with up to 85 traders selling foods, art, jewellery, bric-a-brac, crafts, tools and almost anything else you can imagine. A place to get your bike fixed, grab a bite, listen to the drums, music, watch live performances, poetry and so much more.

And the market’s always been a place for friends to meet and catch-up as well. In fact, that’s one of the reasons why they started organising it in the first place. Somewhere for communities – old and new – to get together. We’ve all missed it during the lockdown months and can’t wait till we can start up again.

The team say:

We rent pitches to stallholders at affordable rates so local people can try out their ideas, sell their art, make a few bob selling their bric-a-brac or even launch new businesses. Many have and it’s been great to see people who started at Granby Street Market growing their ideas into real trading businesses. 

Our colourful gazebos aren’t just for market days either. We also rent them out at low cost to other local community groups and social enterprises; helping to make good things happen right across Liverpool in events at Tiber Square, The Florrie, Windrush Community Days, Stanley Park, The Reader Organisation, Fazakerley Federation, The World Transformed, Liverpool Arabic Festival, Blackburne House, Baltic Market and many more.

We want to carry on doing all this for many more years; which is why we need your help.

We need to raise £30,000 over the next 30 days to buy gazebos, tables, chairs, a new PA system and other equipment. All to help us to get back up and running after an already challenging year.

We need almost £30,000 worth of equipment:

30 gazebos – £13,000 (24 x £400 3m x 3m) (5 x £500 4.5m x 3m) (1 x £900 6mx4m)
80 tables and 60 chairs – £6,600
PA system – £5,000
24 trolleys – £3,120
16 clothes rails – £980

And we know this is a lot to ask. It’s a lot because, as the market has grown over the years, so has the amount of equipment we need, and now it’s all gone in the fire. So, we want to get it back as quickly as possible for the traders, the community and the future of the market. Which is why we’ve set such an ambitious goal. It’s all real and it’s all needed.

A little bit more about us, Granby and why the market is important to our community…

Granby was once home to a busy high-street of more than seventy local businesses and a thriving community of thousands of people. But after decades of under investment and failed regeneration our end of Granby was eventually left with just four of the original streets, where the majority of the houses were empty.

So, when the few remaining residents started the market in 2010, it was to remind people that we were still here, gardening our streets, campaigning to get all the houses restored and bring our place back to life. A decade later, we’re still here, and we still need our market.

In the words of our traders, neighbours and supporters…

Melissa

I’ve been at Granby Market for around four years and share my stall with my friend, Chiaka. I sell handmade children’s dresses, tie dye shirts, baby-grows, baby and toddler bibs, hair bands and bows.  The market is special to me and my partner Paul because it brings the diverse communities of Liverpool together in one street, not only the traders but also the customers it attracts; we’re very proud to be part of it.

Huarara 

I’m a mother of two children and henna tattoo artist and I started my stall at Granby Street Market in 2016. I do henna tattoos, face glitter as well as sell jewellery, scarves, wallets and many other accessories.

I hope the market can start again because I get to meet beautiful people; I’m a very friendly, talkative person, so I get on well with everyone and have made many new friends.

Greg, Eat Up Gud 

For several years my daughter Coral, wife Minna and I have been regular traders at Granby Street Market offering Caribbean cuisine. We love it, we love the vibrancy, the sense of community and the co-operation between the established businesses, market stallholders, day traders and market volunteers. As Traders we tend to find markets are very much weather dependant… this is not the case for Granby- come rain or shine, it is vibrant and alive. Granby Street Market is where we belong and feel at home as part of the community.

Louise, Habibti_Liverpool

We were heartbroken when we heard about the damage done to the market gazebos and other equipment. The market is much more than just a market. It’s quirky, diverse and reflects the community where it is based. It brings people into our area to spend money, to meet and talk to people and market customers talk highly of the atmosphere.

We’re all missing the market very much, the hustle and bustle, the friends and acquaintances, we always have a great laugh, always eat several veg samosas each and stand out in any weather…

DONATION LINK: https://www.gofundme.com/f/granbymarket

READ MORE: Aintree Gin donates over 3000 litres of sanitiser to frontline workers in the North West during Covid-19 pandemic