Let us celebrate our independent businesses

Around The Town by Cllr Peter Hollick, Past Dunstable Town Mayor

Small and medium sized businesses are the backbone of our country. Independents - professions and traders, whether operating from offices, warehouses, shops or on the market, provide goods and services. They create jobs and pay taxes, contributing to our economy.

All these businesses are dependent on a market, that is you! Our town has a wide range of service providers and there are still many shops, not only in the town centre, but also on the shopping parades around the town. Many have featured in this column telling their stories.

Towns have changed over the years, as have our markets. When the A5 trunk road passed through the centre of Dunstable, that helped neither the town centre nor the market. Stall holders did not want to be on The Square. Now the A5 has been de-trunked, the town centre is better environmentally and traders are now regularly on The Square.

That the traders are on The Square as well as along Middle Row, shows how the market has expanded in recent years, thanks to the hard work of our Market Manager and staff.

Not only are there the regular second and third Saturday markets but there are also additional markets - Young Traders Market, Charity Market, the Christmas Twilight markets, Bites on The Square and Street Food Heroes. Various entertainments are added to many markets; children’s games, musicians and singers and information stalls.

Town centres and markets are meeting places, they bring people together. Let us celebrate what we do have!