How Colchester Community Market has thrived in lockdown

Most of us didn't know what the word lockdown really meant, let alone how long one would last.

Just over a year later and we've endured two more national lockdowns, and seen our liberties restricted in ways never seen before during peacetime.

The effect has been devastating on so many aspects of our lives as well as our struggling economy.

Businesses have had to think of new ways to adapt to a crisis like no other on a regular basis.

Before the crisis Colchester had a thriving independent retail community, but rather than this being lost, its members came up with an ingenious way of strengthening this during the pandemic.

Colchester Community Market started off as an off-shoot of the now paused South Lanes Project, originally called South Lanes Market.

It was rebranded Colchester Community Market, with the key word - community - at the heart of its ethos.

Neil Gibb, a retail consultant by trade, was instrumental in setting up the South Lanes Project and Colchester Community Market.

He said: "The South Lanes Project was very successful, we were nominated for the rising start of The British High Street award in 2019.

"There came a point where we needed support though.

"At the time the council had a lot on its plate and the Business Improvement District (BID) was only just beginning, so we made a number of recommendations then put the project on hold while decisions were made.

"Then the pandemic hit...

"Now there are two ways to react to big events like the lockdown.

"The most obvious is to look at the negative impact and a lot of people did that. Obviously a lot of businesses, including my own, were hit very severely.

"There was an upside though, and we decided to look at that.

"Communities are about people not bricks and mortar and we realised lockdown or not the community was still there. What is more there was a real need to connect."

And Colchester Community Market was born.

Mr Gibb said: "The idea was to create an online market where small local independent retailers and makers and people could connect, not just to sell and buy, but for it to be a social experience, much like real-world markets used to be back in the day.

"The response was astonishing. Within two weeks two thousand people had signed up."

Now the group has more than 4,000 members and roughly 200 different traders.

It now runs market days every day of the week where traders from Colchester and the surrounding areas share their wares to the many members.

Run by a small team of community-minded volunteers it promotes ethical and environmentally-friendly choices and small local businesses.

Mr Gibb said: "The biggest and most exciting development over the year is that the majority of people who are now running the market are women. This I think is really important.

"If you look at the stats over 70 per cent of shopping is done by women, and over 80 per cent of buying decisions are made by women.

"But the people making decisions about towns and shopping are still mainly men. This is crazy when you think about it.

"Who should be making the decisions and shaping our places - be they online or in the real world? It is obvious."

At first market days were only on a Thursday, but they're now daily due to such high demand.

Mr Gibb said: "The daily traffic has gone down now we are open every day but the weekly traffic has gone up.

"The growth is organic. The market isn't just people selling stuff, it is social, it connects people.

"Colchester Community Market is a community, a collective, a social club if you like, and people love that. There is an incredible spirit to it."

The model has proved so successful it has been attracting attention from outside Colchester too.

Mr Gibb says the group has been approached by people from other towns and cities asking them to help set up similar projects.

Now the idea is being replicated elsewhere, something Mr Gibb is extremely happy about.

And he says there are likely to be other, more local, positive impacts of its success in the near future.

"We are exploring plans to have real world mini markets outside of the town centre, there has been a lot of interest in that," he said.

"The key though is to remain adaptive and agile at the time like this rather than have grand plans. We need to respond as the world opens up.

"We are seeing a number of businesses from the market now looking for physical premises so I think this is what will actually happen.

"Rather than a big market somewhere we will see lots of new businesses popping up across the town and wider CO postcode region.

"We are big fans of the ‘15 minute neighbourhood’ concept that has emerged out of lockdown - the idea that everything should be available within 15 minutes walk of where you live.

"So we hope that the market will provide a first step for small businesses that can start to show up in different places like the Hythe, Layer Road and Greenstead."

He added: "The legacy of the market is that it has become an incubator. If you have always had an inkling to start something you can with virtually no costs."