BBCVendors and stall owners are bringing life back into a historical market in St Helier as part of ongoing work to revitalise the area.
The Central Market, owned by the government, was built in 1803 and rebuilt in 1881 and currently accommodates about 50 independent traders providing food and gifts.
At the beginning of 2024, restaurants in the market were given permission to stay open for longer on Friday and Saturday nights and new traders were brought in to fill empty stalls.
Constable of St Helier, Deputy Simon Crowcroft said “significant progress” had already been made to make the market more appealing to locals and visitors.
New shop owners brought in by the government include Dough Jersey, run by married duo Ruby and Chris Price.
The couple began making cookies in lockdown 2020 from their home in St John, delivering baked goods across all the parishes before securing their slot in the town market.
The name Dough Jersey was chosen “because we use Jersey produce in our cookies” to represent “the best of our little island”.
Mrs Price said it had been a long journey: “We’ve been loving working in the market so far, we’ve been warmly welcomed by all the lovely tenants and customers.
“It’s taken us five years to get here so I’m really really proud of what we’ve created.”
Mrs Price said due to the market being “so ingrained in Jersey’s history” it attracted a lot of tourists.
She said: “We’ve had French, German, Dutch, Spanish, Irish and English customers just in the past few weeks since we opened, which is incredible.
“The footfall for our business has been fantastic, particularly in the morning which we’ve found to be our busiest time.
“Now more than ever, we feel Dough Jersey is a perfect fit for the market and vice versa.”
Restaurant owner Melanie May-Boothman opened La Bouche alongside her husband James in 2018.
She said it had been a “dream come true” having the venue open in the evenings on Friday and Saturday from 18:00 until 11:00 BST.
She said: “We’ve been trying to get this for quite a while now since we opened due to customers just saying they really like the market at night – it’s just great and hopefully more people will get onboard with it.”
Lots of space
Ms May-Boothman said it would be good for tourism for the market to be open late every evening and to have outdoor seating options for restaurants.
She said: “I think it could be better than what it is, I think you could have more food stalls, street food, people who want to start a new business but can’t afford to.
“We’ve got lots of spaces in the market… I think there could be loads of little hot spots where new people could come in and have pop ups.”
Mr Crowcroft said there had been pop up stalls supporting “local charities and to enable schools to run their highly successful programmes enabling our young people too practise making and selling goods”.
“Pop up opportunities will continue to be sought both in the market and in the rest of town,” he said.
Manger Romano at Relish Delicatessen has been operating within the market for two and a half years.
The shop sells a range of European cheeses, wines, charcuterie and chocolate.
He said working in the market was “brilliant”.
“It’s absolutely enjoyable and having a lot of tourists at the moment it’s really nice to communicate with people,” he said.
Romano said to improve the market, it could be redecorated.
“I think it’s important that the market is getting lighter and brighter because it looks really dreary and dark – winter time it’s really bad, during the summer we have the sun coming in but I think it’s important that we lighten up the whole market to make us frankly more welcoming,” he said.
Mr Crowcroft said a “great deal of research” had been done regarding large scale improvements.
He said: “My personal view is that an evolutionary approach is to be preferred not only because money is tight but also because our central markets are already extremely successful and I would be disappointed if improvement proposals led to some traders finding their existing businesses difficult to manage.
“Some relatively low cost improvements are already in train including attention to the roof and the lighting.”
On top of remaining open in the evenings and introducing new stall owners, the market now remains open on a Thursday afternoon.
It used to close so staff could have a break, but in the government’s Jersey Markets Strategic Review, it said this made “little sense given that this is one of the busiest days of the week in St Helier”.
Mr Crowcroft said: “After so many years of Thursday afternoon closure it is clearly going to take a lot of work to change that situation.
“The market manager has also introduced late night openings for a couple of restaurants in the market on Fridays and Saturdays and these are proving successful.
“There is clearly more that we can do to animate the markets in the evenings – at the same time the practical needs of almost 40 tenants in the market need to be kept in mind in order that they can receive and make deliveries, as well as staff their stalls.”
Mr Crowcroft said since taking over responsibility for the market, he had met with many stallholders and looked “forward to working with them in the future”.
