Peoples Heritage Co-operative: Carbooters Mecca to close

For over forty years there's been a Carboot on the site of the Wholesale Market in Birmingham, but with plans to move the Wholesale Market to Witton, what will happen to the carboot?

Birmingham is a city of a thousand traders, and the Sunday morning carboot in Birmingham is easily the biggest in the West Midlands. At present there are no plans to re-open the carboot at all.

It's also a vital part of our city's cultural heritage, alongside the Wholesale Market itself, and Friction Arts are documenting and celebrating it's existence before it disappears. Make sure you go before the last Sunday 20th August 8 to 11:30am - and on the 20th August expect something special from Friction Arts.

Here's what the traders had to say last Sunday:

'There's not many places that are central that you can go to is there? This is central, where people catch buses don't they? It nice and pleasant, the people are nice, it's definitely one of the best ones.'

'The prices are up, they've raised the prices...I'll go to Redditch or Kingsbury...if it closes down it closes down. What can you do?'

'When it closes, that's it! I'm quitting, getting another job, anything...it's sad.'

'I don't know what we're gonna do when it closes. It's the best one, the most well known one. It's a big problem. No one knows what'll happen. there's no alternative in the city. The carboot's been going for donkeys of years. They're not protecting this one, or they don't seem to be. It's a wide range of stuff, and its the biggest one in the West Midlands...I've been going ten, fifteen years.'

'I'll go to Cannock, simple. I'll go there. It's fifteen miles, its far...but I'll have to.'

'I've no plans, I've got no plans... Now I'm just clearing the stuff, that's all.'

'It's best they keep it, because you see this many people, if you look at this many people where are they going to go, there gonna loose money, you know, there's a lot of money here. If they're going to be taking this away they're going to be loosing a lot of money. Whoever takes it over - not here, but somewhere - they could make a lot of money. It's good business.'