Couple warn that city could become 'boring' as they leave market behind

FAMILY BUSINESS MOVES TO NEW SPOT OFF OLD MARKET SQUARE

- By GEORGE PALMER-SOADY

A COUPLE who started up their beauty business at the Victoria Market, but had to move out because of its impending closure, have warned that the city could become “boring and corporate” without an indoor market.

Rajesh and Mona Dhingra are now operating Mona’s Beauty Bar from a unit on Long Row, which they have spent nearly £200,000 refurbishing.

The couple previously operated at the market, which Nottingham City Council is in the process of shutting down, for 17 years.

Mona's Beauty Bar is the latest business to leave the market, which boasted hundreds of traders when it opened in the 1970s. That number has now dwindled to just five.

Those five traders say the council has no legal right to turf them out and are waiting for what they regard as fair compensation offers before they leave.

The council wants to hand the site back to the Victoria Centre to avoid paying £39 million on the remaining 50 years of its lease - with M&S rumoured to be interested.