Cake seller wants Wednesday slot back on St Albans market
A CAKE seller who has worked St Albans market for 20 years is desperate to get her old Wednesday spot back. Sharon Herd, aged 45, operates a bread and cake stall opposite Marks & Spencer and, after three years of only opening at the weekend, she decided l
A CAKE seller who has worked St Albans market for 20 years is desperate to get her old Wednesday spot back.
Sharon Herd, aged 45, operates a bread and cake stall opposite Marks & Spencer and, after three years of only opening at the weekend, she decided last autumn to run her stall on Wednesdays again.
But Ms Herd's request, which she made to markets and street trading manager Chris Tofts last September, was refused within days and she only received justification for the decision a couple of weeks ago.
Said Ms Herd, who lives in Hammers Gate, St Albans: "I got a letter from Cllr Melvyn Teare, which basically said that I can't run the spot because my cakes would take up too much room, but I'm only asking for one stall!"
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She added: "People need choice on a market and there have always been two bread and cake stalls here."
Ms Herd has enlisted the help of MP for St Albans Anne Main, who said in a letter to Cllr Teare that she was "surprised" by the refusal considering the fact that there were plenty of vacant stalls on Wednesday's market.
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But Cllr Teare said that the request has not been dismissed and added: "The markets manager and I never gave Ms Herd a definite 'no' and I am currently trying to find an appropriate spot for her cake stall."
He added: "Although Ms Herd only pays for one stall and an extension, she does take up an awful lot of extra space with storage. She needs substantially more room than one stall to operate her business, which makes finding a suitable spot quite tricky."
Cllr Teare suggested that Ms Herd might be allocated either a stall opposite the old McDonald's, or one next to the former Laura Ashley building. He added: "I will be contacting Ms Herd soon and hopefully we can come to a conclusion together."
But Ms Herd said that she was fed up with waiting for an adequate response from the council and added: "Our market has gone down-scale big time and someone needs to do something fast. We used to be a vibrant market town and now it's all going to pot.
