Coffee House Challenge, Borders Starbucks, Market Place, Kingston, 21/6/07

“101 THINGS TO DO WITH A DEAD MARKET HOUSE”

BACKGROUND
Last year a Kingston Coffee House Challenge discussion identified the Market House as an under-used community asset right in the centre of Kingston upon Thames. Our vision, aimed at improving the town centre for everyone, especially in the evenings, was along Continental lines: fewer dark shops and offices, more cafés and restaurants open and more cultural activities, particularly in the Market House and around the Market Place, offering a civilized (and civilizing?) alternative to the noisy pubs and clubs that many find create an unwelcoming and intimidating atmosphere in Kingston after dark.

Since then I have talked to various people about those ideas and found that many others shared our concerns and enthusiasms. For example, the K+20 Issues Papers (Feb 2004) identified many of the problems we discussed and had some of the same aspirations (see Appendix), and its findings were confirmed in later consultations and plans. A Mori poll published in March 2007 found that, though Kingston was rated one of the top 5 places in London for “quality of life”, residents were dissatisfied with the borough’s museums, galleries, theatres and concert halls. I also got the impression that the Council would welcome constructive ideas.

The new Rose Theatre, just to the South of the Market Place, will open in the autumn and Kingston Parish Church, on the North side of the Market Place holds concerts. Borders bookshop in the Market Place stays open late most evenings. But otherwise the Market Place in the evenings is dark and empty, with shops and stalls closed and few people around. There are good cultural events going on in Kingston, such as the Readers’ Festival and Think in Kingston, but they have no focal point and do not always get large audiences, despite the fact that Kingston has the second highest number of graduates in greater London, and 10s of 1000s of people work in Kingston. People could (as they do in central London) be persuaded to come into the town centre or stay on after work if there were well publicised and regular events to stay on for. There should be more to do in Kingston between shops and offices closing and later evening events e g eating out or theatre.

THE MARKET HOUSE
The ground floor is a Tourist Information centre, closed in the evenings. There used to be a café, but this no longer runs. There are public toilets. Upstairs is the Main Hall, 5.5 x 10.5 metres, which seats 90 for meetings, 60 for sit down meals, and the Antechamber, 4.5 x 6 metres, which seats 30. They are not particularly cheap to hire, e g the Main Hall, Mon – Thurs evening, costs £23 (non commercial), £29 (commercial) per hour , minimum hire 4 hours (early 2007 rates). Current users include market researchers (daytime) and Weightwatchers (evening) but it is often empty.


OUR  INFORMAL COFFEEHOUSE CHALLENGE DISCUSSION, held in Kingston Borders Starbucks last Thursday, 21/6/07, rose imaginatively to the challenge of finding “101 Things To Do With A Dead Market House”. Our group of nine brainstormed inventively (with the very place we were discussing just outside the window) and came up with plenty of possible uses.

My comment: Thank you to everyone who participated. Our aspirations for a much more diverse culture in our town centre do seem to be widely shared (see Appendix), and the Market House and surrounding open space are clearly underused assets with huge potential. If every local association or interest group used the Market House or Market Square just once a month or so for an event or meeting open to the public, we could relatively easily achieve a more interesting and attractive leisure scene in our historic town centre, and other enterprises would surely follow. Our suggestions seemed both exciting and feasible to us, but it would take a combination of community participation and encouragement and goodwill from Kingston Council to make them happen. 

How could the Market House and the surrounding traffic free Market Place play a role in the development of a Kingston "cultural quarter" that would be attractive to a wide range of ages and cultural backgrounds? What kinds of thing could they be used for?

POSSIBLE USES (not quite 101, but plenty to get on with)

Indoors in the Market House
Films – classic films, foreign films, musicals…
A coffee bar
A licensed café
Fringe theatre
Lectures
Debates and discussions
Puppet theatre
Poetry readings
Poetry competitions
Book events, perhaps in conjunction with Borders
Talent competitions
Inter-cultural / interfaith get-togethers for coffee, talks, festivals, music
Regular live music – jazz, classical, popular…
Exhibition space for art from local artists schools, colleges, the University,
Fashion shows – by the art college, local shops and stores
Dance classes – salsa, ballroom, jive…
Dancing: salsa, “tea dances” etc
Rehearsal rooms for local bands, groups, orchestras etc
Rehearsal rooms for local drama groups
Film & Digital Media centre / studios
A meeting place for the elderly – for tea, old films and TV programmes, sing-alongs…
A meeting place for parents of babies, young children
Local clubs and societies – e g photography, sewing circles, bird watching, philosophy etc
Local interest groups e g Amnesty, Friends of the Earth, Kingston Society etc
A youth centre
An extension of library / museum / heritage centre
Receptions and entertaining for e g Thames Concerts or Kingston Arts Council
Pre-concert talks
Pre-theatre talks
Display space for local community groups information
Commercial presentations e g holiday firms
Tourist information, ticket sales etc as now

Outdoors in the Market Place
Big screen outdoor films - classic films, foreign films, musicals…
Regular live music – jazz, classical, popular…
Dancing: salsa, “tea dances” etc
Street entertainers – jugglers etc
Fashion shows
“Speakers’ Corner”
More Italian / German / French markets, staying open later
More and better restaurants around the Market Place
Cafes staying open later
 

WAYS AND MEANS

The Market House
- The Market House needs to be much cheaper to hire, or even free for public / community / open events
- There needs to be something going on in and/or around the Market House regularly, preferably every day, so that people come to expect events worth visiting
- Someone proactive needs to be responsible for coordinating events, and making it attractive and available to local groups, clubs, event organisers (currently neither of the email addresses on the Council website re lettings works)
- Generally, the venue and the events held in and around it need to be better publicised – posters, electronic signage etc
- It needs to look more welcoming, accessible and open (the market stalls don’t help)
- Lunchtime and Sunday activities as well as evening e g Sunday morning “coffee concerts”
- Hand over the Market House to the Libraries and Museum department, with the proviso that it stays open late and holds regular events, and / or encourages others to use it for public events
- Comfortable and flexible seating

The Market Place
- Comfortable outdoor seating
- Better publicity for events – posters, electronic signage
- More places (shops, cafes etc) open after 5.00 or 6.00 pm, with outdoor tables
- Better lighting
- More flowers
- More use of canopies / marquees to enable all-weather events
- Greater, and more coherent, connection between the Market House and the church when concerts are on.
- A coherent architectural approach for the church pathway (and lighting) to the Market Place.
- "Clear out the stalls, glass over the top, and turn that thing in the middle (the Market House) into a glass box - make the entire piazza into a space for performance and events" - response of Terence Conran, Rodney Fitch and Michael Wolf, when asked years ago what they would do with the Market Place (from the minutes of a recent meeting on an Arts strategy for the RBK)
- Parking open late and well lit, safe 

Marilyn Mason FRSA, 26/6/07

APPENDIX

Extracts from the K+20 “designing our future together” Issues Papers, supported since by subsequent K+20 plans and consultations. The consultation papers note:
• “a need for further diversification of evening uses to attract and develop more cultural uses, which would in turn attract a wider spread of visitors of different ages and not just young people under 30…”.
• “…. The need to promote longer stay linked visits for shopping and leisure activities”
• “…Need to consider extending shopping hours to assist in encouraging visitors to stay longer and to reduce the ‘inactive’ time in the town centre, between 5.0pm when shops/cafes start to close and 7.30pm when evening leisure uses (cinemas and restaurants) tend to get going
• “… The need to improve the character of the town at night, in the daytime the town centre is a pleasant place to visit and shop, at night the large numbers of drinkers and clubbers contribute to an unattractive evening and night-time character, which is increasingly unacceptable to the majority of residents living around the town centre…” 
• “The central area lacks evening activity and this leads people to feel unsafe & insecure” 
• “The town centre is perceived by many in the older age groups as unsafe, all visitors to the town centre need to feel safe and be able to enjoy a night out”
• “The need for a more diverse range of evening leisure uses, including cultural and entertainment facilities to attract and cater for a broader spread of ages, including more families and older people, to reduce the dominance of late night entertainment, young people (16-30) and alcohol.”
• “The town centre does not capitalise on its major physical attractions - the historic core and riverside location”
• “There is a lack of outdoor spaces to sit in and some spaces are under utilised
• “Underused spaces become the focus of anti-social behaviour, and vandalism, setting in place a spiral of decline”
• “Consider improvements to All Saints Church and churchyard, St James Square/Union St, and the Market Place”
• “The enjoyment of public spaces is undermined by conflicts eg. between pedestrians and vehicles eg Market Place and the northern Riverside”
• “In the Market Place, the streetscape and appearance of the market stalls when they are closed, contrast with beautiful surrounding buildings”
• “The Market Place is a missed opportunity that could be improved”
• “Some historic buildings are surrounded by poor quality public space”
• “The historic core is an asset”
• “The Market Place has the potential to rival some of the great squares of British and continental European cities”