Ten years on from the relaunch of Market House, we speak to Market Operations co-founder Nick Johnson on how he and partner Jenny Thompson reinvented Altrincham’s historic market - and how long they plan to stay involved.
“We have the ability in Altrincham to deliver something that you can’t actually deliver anywhere else in the North West... a market can be used as a very cost-effective tool for regeneration, you can do it without major capital, and you can do it quickly.”
When Nick Johnson spoke these words in an interview with Altrincham Today on June 4th 2014, Altrincham was almost unrecognisable from the place it is today.
As pictures from the time will attest, Altrincham was quite a drab place: empty, boarded-up retail units dotted the town centre; there was a general air of disrepair and of a town that had become unloved; and Altrincham Market, built towards the end of Disraeli’s second term in 1879, was ill-befitting a town whose market charter could be traced right back to 1290.
It was a town in need of an intervention - and, thankfully, one arrived.
After 15 years with Urban Splash, which had played a big role in the regeneration of Manchester city centre after the IRA bomb of 1996, Nick Johnson was well known in regional property circles.
Indeed he had quite the CV: as well as chairing Marketing Manchester for seven years, Johnson had been a commissioner for CABE, the Government’s advisor on architecture, urban design and public space, and was a Visiting Fellow of Architecture at Yale University.
But the fancy titles masked a deep sense of impotence.
“I look back at my CV and think ‘wow, that's impressive... who's he?’” says Johnson.
“All those titles that suggested a degree of authority couldn't have been further from the truth. It was my most impotent time, when I had the least impact. So I renounced all of it.”
Johnson left Urban Splash in the autumn of 2012 and, after a career helping to regenerate other places, turned his attention to his adopted hometown of Altrincham.
“Due to circumstances in our family and other factors, my world was shrinking and I was spending more time in and around the place that I lived - and that place was not fit for purpose,” he says.
But things were starting to happen. A blueprint for a new Market Quarter was drawn up by Altrincham Forward, a task force set up to drive change in the town centre.
Although Johnson declined an offer to sit on Altrincham Forward’s board - the result of a vow he had made to never again sit in a meeting with more than three people - he was intrigued by the opportunity that lay at the heart of the plans.
“I've always been interested in market halls,” he says. “They are the embodiment of a local area in that you can get things in a market that you can only get in that town or city.”
With a cheerleader in then Trafford Council leader Matt Colledge - “he was the first person on the council's side who really believed in what we might achieve” - Johnson formed a company, Market Operations, and in April 2013 won the tender to take on operational management of the market.
He and Thompson invested £200,000 of their own money into the project, and with an injection of £400,000 from Trafford Council, they got to work.
“We wanted to demonstrate that you could effect transformational change for very little money,” he says. “Altrincham was really rock bottom 10 years ago, but I saw the potential of the market. With everything going for it, it should have been thriving. It didn't reflect the people that it served.”
The covered area of the market was the first to see major change, with some traditional stalls making way for an array of new artisan traders.
Then, in September 2014, the doors of Market House reopened to reveal the transformational change.
Gone were the pick ‘n mix stalls; in their place were reclaimed wooden floorboards, row upon row of communal tables and chairs, and a square of smart stalls with gold-lettered signage announcing a series of new food and drink businesses: Honest Crust pizzas, Reserve Wines, Jack in the Box, Sam Joseph Chocolates and more.
The new food hall proved an instant hit.
“It was seat-of-the-pants stuff,” remembers Johnson. “I remember trying to sort out the speaker cables to try and get the sound system working at 12.30 on the opening day. We did a dry run on the first weekend and we were completely overwhelmed - I have to say I was profoundly surprised. The warmth of the reaction was amazing - people were coming up to me in the street and saying 'my God, what have you done, it's amazing, thank you'. And that was just the first weekend.”
Gradually, Johnson and Thompson filled the remaining stalls with carefully curated occupiers.
“We had to find people who had all the right qualities - they had to leave their egos at home, they had to get on with the others, and they had to have a real passion for what they did.”
Word quickly spread about the revamped Market House, and only a year later it was named ‘Best Local Market’ at the 2015 Observer Food Monthly Awards. It has continued to establish itself as a model for how to use a market to regenerate a town.
“We've had some testing times but we're still here,” says Johnson. “We're still seen as the benchmark for this kind of activity, and still proudly carrying on with the quality that we set out to achieve at the start.”
So 10 years later, why has it retained its appeal while others - such as in Sale and Stretford - have failed?
“It's not a dry, manipulated concept,” says Johnson, who continues to be solely responsible for compiling the music playlists heard in Market House.
“It's a genuine attempt to bring the community together around a table and receive a satisfactory experience in every way. Jen and I still lust after coming down here just to be amongst people. You just feel the atmosphere of being in a place where seemingly everybody is happy. It's very ramshackle and chaotic and satisfyingly informal.“
The decade has also brought considerable growth for Market Operations, the business behind the market. Using the same formula that has proved such a success in Altrincham, Johnson and Thompson revamped Mackie Mayor, a Victorian fresh produce market on the edge of the Northern Quarter that had lain empty since the 1990s, as well as the Picturedrome, a former cinema and bingo hall in Macclesfield.
They’ve now renovated a pub, The Nag’s Head in Tarporley, a project which has proved challenging.
“Opening a pub post-Covid and with a cost of living crisis around the corner is something you'd never do, and it's been incredibly tough,” Johnson admits.
“It's taken a lot more involvement than we anticipated and it isn't exactly like we thought it was going to be, but you just have to let things evolve. It's now really found its feet and is beginning to really flourish.”
There are no more major projects on the horizon - “I have had the metaphorical snip! I have been rendered incapable of any more acts of enterprise” - but with 225 people on its payroll across the four sites, Market Operations is now a sizeable operation in itself.
Some employees, like former Honest Crust employee Jim Morgan who went on to launch fast-growing pizza chain Rudy’s (its 27th restaurant has just opened a couple of hundred yards from Market House on Central Way), have gone on to establish successful enterprises themselves.
Others, like ‘Man of Letters’ Zac Crompton, the man responsible for ‘The Market Font’, have remained on board since day one.
“The number of people who have been with us for five years, some in excess of 10, is unbelievable,” says Johnson. “It's because we give them the responsibility that they deserve. Zac has turned that font into an artform. He's making so many decisions that I don't have to. It's that soul. You can't write it down. You either get it or you don't.”
His partner, too, and mother to Johnson’s four daughters, has been a critical part of the journey.
“I'm the mouth and can deliver the strategic vision, but you need somebody behind you who can turn it into reality,” he says. “Jen has an incredible ability to spot talent in traders, and I'd be nothing without her.”
So what does Johnson make of the progress Altrincham has made over the last decade?
“Probably the last thing Altrincham needs right now is another coffee shop, and we're probably going to be overwhelmed very soon with pizza,” he suggests.
“I'm not suggesting that we haven't made significant progress - it is unquestionable that the town has changed, but I think that more of the same isn't always the best solution.
“It's difficult because the retail environment is incredibly challenging and it's not easy to deliver the diverse town centre I think we should have, but we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that Altrincham needs to continue on a path to distinguishing itself to be different from other places and embrace the independent sector, not exclusively, but to get the balance right between independents and corporates.”
He adds: “We need a good gents' shoe shop, a good menswear shop. There's still much more to do and if we had a compelling vision as to what that might look like, we'd really be on to a winner.”
So what of the future? How long do Johnson and Thompson - who were awarded MBEs for services to business and the food sector in the New Year’s Honours List - see themselves involved with the market?
“Five years,” the 59-year-old says.
“Part of me says I want it to be in this form forever so that I can bring my grandkids, but I'm also pragmatic enough to understand that things do change, and I don't want to be part of the older generation just holding on.
“Jen and I are at that stage where we simply don't have the energy to carry on, and we want to make sure that the third part of our life is about doing less and spending more time doing what we want to do.”
What will follow Johnson and Thompson’s creation remains to be seen, but judging by the numbers that still pack Market House to the rafters, many will hope that it does not stray too far from the original.
“It’s been the most potent, most satisfying and most enjoyable 10 years of my career,” says Johnson.
“I am very proud of what it's become, and it's become that only in part because of what Jen and I have done. People have made it their space.”
Altrincham Market will be holding a party this weekend, September 21st and 22nd, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of its relaunch. There will be 10 live bands playing across the market, each kitchen will be doing a special birthday menu, and Blackjack Brewery will be brewing a 10th birthday beer.
