Camden New Journal - News: Traders hit by market fire reject cash handouts

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Camden New Journal - by SARA NEWMAN
Published: 6 March 2008

Last month’s blaze at Camden Lock

Traders hit by market fire reject cash handouts

RELATIONS between market traders who lost their pitches in last month’s Camden fire and the Canal Market land owners have frayed over the size of a rescue fund.
Some stallholders refused a handout which they say boiled down to £500 each, branding the figure an insult.
But Piers Codling, from Camden Market Holdings, said any suggestion that the company had not done its best to help was in itself insulting.
“We’re bound to get complaints,” he said. “I’m almost insulted myself.
“I can say hand on heart we have been as fair as we can in the time we’ve had.”
CMH announced a £500,000 fund, keeping its promise to give £2 for every £1 pledged by Mayor of London Ken Livingstone, who has stumped up £250,000 to help publicise Camden Market as a whole.
But Rezuar Rahman, who has worked in the market for 10 years, said he was only offered seven per cent of his £110,000 claim for financial help.
He said: “Why did they ask for the invoices if they are just going to insult us like this? I will end up on the street.”
Sunny Gulati, another trader, claims to have lost £5,000 of leather jackets in the fire and has turned down CMH’s offer of £500.
He said: “We used to make three or four hundred pounds a week and now, after nearly four weeks, they offer £500. We need a place to trade, the market open, and not a development.”
Mr Codling declined to comment on individual cases.

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