FANCY setting up shop in Oxford’s Covered Market?

You may think again after hearing about the going rate for one of the landmark site’s empty shops.

Palm’s Delicatessen has been empty for a year and is available for rent at £40,000-a-year – a big jump from the £25,000 the previous shopkeepers were paying.

It comes as other shop owners await the outcome of a precedent-setting rent decision between the city council, which owns the Covered Market, and a market cafe.

Chris Farron, from the Cake Shop, said the bumper increase showed how businesses were battling to pay the rent.

He said: “That is a lot of money. When you add it to business rates, it means you need to be making £1,000 a week before you can do anything else, like pay staff.”

Mr Farron pointed out shops were also facing a rise in National Insurance payments to staff.

The minimum wage also rose last year from £5.80 to £5.93, and from £4.83 to £4.92 for 18- to 20-year-olds.

Last night, the city council said it always looked to set an appropriate level of rent from units in the Covered Market.

But Mr Farron added: “The trouble is that the council is not commercially minded. They take what they think is the easy option to raise money, by raising rents.

“But they do not realise that a time comes when that does not work. And I think we have reached that time.”

Mr Farron suggested it would be better to have a firm paying a lower rent than seeing units go empty.

Morton’s cafe is also facing a 60 per cent rent hike on one of its units, but has challenged the proposal. The city council wants to raise the rent from £15,000 to £24,000-a-year.

Tenants Jim Kinniburgh and Craig Muir have taken the matter to arbitration. Their appeal was heard on December 23 and they are now awaiting the decision.

The Oxford Mail has reported recently on the number of stores closing in Little Clarendon Street, and London Road, Headington.

A city council spokesman said: “The empty unit in the Covered Market is being marketed on our behalf by Marriot’s.

“We have had interest from a variety of prospective tenants although our target market is constrained due to our desire to support existing traders, in line with the agreed lettings strategy.

“As good estate management practice, as landlords we carry out periodic rent reviews on our properties.

“The council always seeks to secure the appropriate level of rental income from the properties in the Covered Market and throughout its portfolio.”

Graham Jones, spokesman for the High Street Business Association, also accused the council of short-sightedness by raising parking charges in the city.

He said: “Putting up parking charges has done nobody any good, not even the city council, because their takings from car parks have gone down as customers decide it is simply too expensive to park in them.”

“I am aware that Oxford has a robust economy. But I am also aware that it is dependent on 60 per cent of jobs being in the public sector in which cuts are expected.

“And now, with the crisis in the Middle East pushing up petrol prices, and adding to inflation, there is a lot of nervousness about.”