Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what assessment his Department has made of the effectiveness of the Love your local market campaign by the National Association of British Market Authorities and the National Market Traders Federation in supporting the Government's policy of promoting town centres.

The campaign has had a real impact in helping drive footfall and bringing local communities together, delivering a key strand of the Government’s town centre policy to create vibrant and sustainable high streets and markets. It recognises that markets make a vital contribution to local communities and economies.

The Government part-funded the National Association of British Market Authorities to run the campaign between 2012 and 2016, ensuring that there was a focus on encouraging young people of all ages to participate, including places holding specific youth markets. This year’s campaign, which will take place between 17 and 31 May, will again focus on how to attract young people to markets – not only as traders but also as shoppers.

The National Market Traders’ Federation works closely with the National Association of British Market Authorities on “Love Your Local Market”. Government welcomes the National Market Traders’ Federation own, successful National Youth Market initiative, which is run in partnership with Manchester Markets. This is aimed at 16-30 year olds who have a great business idea to test out.

This Government will continue to help promote the campaigns through visits and publicity.