The popular Cambridge Farmers Market. File photo: Mary Anne Gill.
The organisation behind the weekly Cambridge Farmers’ Market has confirmed it no longer operates under a charitable trust status.
This follows revelations in The News last week that Waipā District Council intends extending the market’s ‘community lease’ in Victoria Square by five years with two rights of renewal for five years each.
The annual Licence to Occupy lease cost for the trust, if approved, would be $357 a year – roughly $7 a week. The trust then on charges its 30 stallholders between $40-$80 per stall each week – more than $1200 a week. Stallholders who are members of the trust also pay an annual membership fee.
Meanwhile Hamilton City Council charges the trust commercial rates to operate from Claudelands Events Centre every Sunday.
Submissions on the Waipā council proposal are due with the council on Monday.
Kelly Bouzaid
Cambridge Chamber of Commerce chief executive Kelly Bouzaid said her organisation would like to make a submission but had not been consulted and wanted to know what was being proposed.
The key question was whether market stallholders were getting an unfair competitive advantage over other Cambridge businesses who pay commercial rents and rates, she said.
The council says the market is operated by a charitable trust and qualifies for council’s standard community lease rate. The council also pays for repairs to the surface where the market operates from. Last year it spent $2750 to reinstate the ground.
The statement from trustee Greg Kirkwood on Monday contradicts one he made to The News on June 19 when he said:
“The Hamilton and Cambridge Farmers Market Trust currently operates as a Trust. The Trust was established in November 2011, we operate under the guidelines of the Trust Deed and H&C Farmers Market Charter.”
He refused to comment on whether Waipā ratepayers were subsidising the Hamilton market by charging the trust less. The trust has also refused to provide financial details or say where any market profits go.
Kirkwood said trust members receive the annual accounts.
“They are not a public document, the contractual agreements we have with Claudelands are also not for public notice so I feel it inappropriate to disclose the information you are requesting.”
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