A FINAL offer has been made to try to break the deadlock over rent rises in the Covered Market.

Oxford City Council, the market’s owner, has given the traders until next week to decide whether to accept the offer.

It will mean the traders will pay 16 per cent more rent and pay the back rent they owe in installments over the next two and a half years.

If no deal is reached by Wednesday, the issue will return to arbitration and an independent consultant will once more decide what the rents should be.

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Sandie Griffith, the owner of Jemini florists and secretary of the Covered Market Traders’ Association (CMTA), said it would be a matter for each individual trader to decide whether to take up the offer.

She said: “The costs, but particularly yet further delay in going to arbitration, will be a major factor in deciding whether to accept the council’s offer.

“Had we been offered this price in the beginning many of the traders might have been inclined to accept it.”

She added that, as an individual trader herself, she would probably accept the offer which she described as “fair”.

The row over rents in Oxford’s Covered Market began in 2012 when the city council proposed putting rents up by as much as 70 per cent.

But it failed to reach an agreement with the traders and the issue went to arbitration – initially for five traders.

Earlier this year the arbitrator suggested an increase of 7.3 per cent in the test cases .

However the council refused to honour an agreement with the 40 members of the CMTA that it would roll out the arbitrator’s findings across the market.

The council claimed there was an error in the calculations.

City council leader Bob Price said: “We had a higher figure advised to us in the first place by our professional advisers and we are moving away from that in an attempt to get a negotiated solution to this.

“We feel people are working together.

“We have got an action plan in place for the future of the market and there is a positive relationship with the new manager.”

Timeline

  • 2012 – The council makes each trader an individual offer with increases of up to 70 per cent
  • 2013 – As the deal goes to arbitration on five cases, the council says that it will roll out the results to the whole market
  • March 2014 – An independent arbitrator recommends increases of 7.3 per cent but the council claims there is a mistake in the conclusions and goes back on its offer
  • August 2014 – The council makes an initial offer of 16 per cent
  • October 2014 – This is followed by an offer of 16 per cent plus a deal on the back rent which means they will pay it installments


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