TRADERS forced to move to the $600 million Epping wholesale fruit and vegetable market have a plan to thwart the state government.
Their representative body has bought a property near the Coopers Road site for warehousing to undercut the government, which last week announced plans for state-owned on-site market warehousing.
The government will close the existing wholesale market in Footscray Road, West Melbourne and open the Epping centre in 2014-2015. John Roach, the chief executive of Fresh Start, which represents 146 traders, said the proposed rents for trading space and warehousing were “Collins Street retail prices”. He said the price of fresh produce would soar because traders faced massive rent hikes, or the sellers would go broke.
Mr Roach would not disclose the location of the traders’ group property, which will offer competitive rents, but said it was large enough to provide 100,000 square metres of warehousing – the same amount the government wants to build on site.
He said the Epping Wholesale market was a “white elephant” and claimed that when it opens in 2014-15 the rent for trading space would be $487 a square metre per year, compared to $156 a square metre in Sydney’s wholesale market in the same year.
Minister for Major Projects Denis Napthine last week announced the government was seeking expressions of interest to build a 100,000 square metre warehouse on the Epping market site.
“This significant investment of an expected many tens of millions of dollars in Melbourne’s northern region will generate jobs and drive economic growth,” he said.
“Warehousing is critical to market tenants for storage of goods before they are taken to the trading floor.”
