Tuesday March 8, 2011

Dear colleague,

Low Emission Zone - London

NABMA has been asked to give publicity to tighter emission standards that will be introduced in London from 3rd January 2012. Enclosed is a press release giving details of the changes that will be introduced which will be particularly important to our London members and also to the wholesale markets operating in London.

“The Low Emission Zone, operating 24 hours a day, every day of the year, was introduced in 2008 to encourage the most polluting heavy diesel vehicles driving in the Capital to become cleaner. The aim is to improve the health and quality of life of everyone in London by limiting the amount of particulate matter (pollution) coming from a vehicles exhaust.

From 3 January 2012, there will be tighter emission standards for those vehicles already affected and more vehicle types included.

Lorries and heavy specialist vehicles over 3.5 tonnes gross vehicle weight will need to meet Euro IV emissions standards and for the first time larger vans and specialist diesel vehicles between 1.205 tonnes unladen and 3.5 tonnes gross vehicle weight will need to meet Euro 3 emissions standards.

There are a number of options available to meet the standards including fitting an approved filter, upgrading the vehicle, converting to gas, reorganising the fleet or paying a daily charge.

For vehicles registered outside of Great Britain they will need to be registered with TfL if they meet the standards before driving within London.

For more information visit www.tfl.gov.uk/lezlondon or call 0845 607 0009”
 

National Planning Policy Framework

One of the significant achievements of NABMA in recent years has been to secure the inclusion of markets within national policy guidance. The formal recognition of markets is included in PPS4 which encourages local authorities to invest in markets and also recognises the importance of markets as catalysts to the High Street. Recently the Government launched a consultation on creating a new policy framework for planning. NABMA has responded to this consultation and details of NABMA’s response has already been provided to our membership. NABMA fundamentally believes that it is essential that the “Town Centre First” approach currently contained in PPS4 is retained and strengthened. Additionally we want to see an approach for developers proposing out of centre developments to provide robust and objective evidence that the development will not have a detrimental impact on existing town centres. If you want further details about NABMA’s response to the consultation please contact the office at nabma@nabma.com

Conference 2011

Recognising the difficult financial decisions that all our members will have to make in 2011/12 we have made a fantastic offer to secure delegate bookings for Harrogate in September. With support from the Barceló Group and our sponsors we are reducing the cost of Conference attendance from £390 in 2010 to £195 in 2011. This fantastic offer is only available until 31st March 2011 when we will have to review prices. All we need from members is a commitment to come to Conference by 31st March 2011. If you are able to pay the invoice by that time this will be helpful but what we want is a commitment of support. The theme of this year’s Conference is “Spotlight on Markets” and we will be looking at a range of issues including markets as a cultural/tourism venue, improving failing markets, providing good practice from Market of the Year winners, examining whether market rights are still of value to market operators and reviewing our continuing work with Government and other topical issues affecting the market industry. £195 for accommodation, meals and all Conference sessions. It is a great bargain! Please register your delegate bookings as soon as possible.

Market of the Year Winners

Every year we receive requests for information about Market of the Year winners. It is important that the good practice demonstrated by our winners is disseminated throughout our membership. We have therefore decided to launch a publication in the near future giving details of the 2011 winners and also supplement these winners with a number of other markets that have won Market of the Year Awards on two occasions in recent years. Look out for details of this publication shortly.

Institute of Place Management

You will recall that we launched NABMA’s partnership of the Institute of Place Management at the Buxton Conference in September 2010. We have received a number of messages from members that they have found difficulty in taking up membership of the Institute because of the requirements of the application process. Hopefully we have now resolved these problems and members will have received information that will enable them to apply for membership simply by sending an email to the Institute with details of their post and qualification. All applicants will be afforded Associated Membership of the Institute and NABMA will assist the Institute in validating other applications for full membership. When we launched NABMA’s partnership with the Institute we were hoping to attract up to fifty Institute members prior to launching the Diploma in Markets Management. Unfortunately we are still some distance away from getting the fifty members but hopefully the improved membership arrangements will enable us to reach our target in the next few months. Once this has been achieved we can then move on to introduce the Diploma in Markets Management.