History of the Cheese Market.
The Cheese Market was built as the Town Hall around 1840 by Sir Joseph Bailey on the site of a previous market building, in the Memorial Square. It was sold to Hay Urban Council in 1901 by the Glan Usk Estate with a covenant saying it had to be used for the benefit of the community of Hay. Over the years it has been transferred from Hay Urban Council, to Brecknock Council and finally to Powys County Council in 1996. Upstairs it was originally the meeting place for the Manorial Court. It has also served as a Catholic Church, Masonic Hall, Council Chamber and was finally used by Hay Photography Club. It has now stood empty for several years.
History of CIC.
When it was heard that Powys were intending to sell the Cheese Market the Chamber of Commerce called an open meeting. This was held in February 2008 and about 30-40 people attended. At this meeting an action committee was formed, and a series of public consultations took place. It became apparent that people did want to keep the Cheese Market. The group then set up the Hay on Wye Community Enterprise CIC.
A Community Interest Company is a non profit making organisation whose assets are tied up so that individuals cannot benefit from them. For instance if the CIC were to fold the assets (in this case the Cheese Market) would be passed on to a similar organisation in Hay.
The CIC meets once a month and consists of the following people: Chris Armstrong, John Evans, David Gittins, Caroline Hafner, Anna Hicks, Ian Jardin, Peter Lord, Emma Smith, Freer Spreckley, Juliet Noble, Carolyn Theobald and Fiona Howard.
Since the summer of 2008 we have been negotiating with Powys to get a lease on the building. This was eventually achieved in 2010 when we were offered a 99 year lease on a peppercorn rent.
The Plan
We believe that the Cheese Market needs to be sustainable and so to this end we are planning to turn the upstairs into a holiday flat along the lines of the Landmark Trust. This will give us an income to maintain the fabric of the building, and hopefully to pay for a part-time job which will be to run events in the Cheese Market, the Market Square and even possibly to run the Thursday market, (at the moment this is run on a voluntary basis by John Evans).
Downstairs the ugly toilet block will be removed to open up the ground floor space. This will create an exciting new central space in Hay for people to use for any number of activities including music, dance and drama events, exhibitions, or for use as a market hall, a dining room for cycling parties or ramblers, for education tours and many other initiatives that can be offered to groups and individuals.
Hay Community Enterprise itself will organise annual events, as well as hiring out the premises. There will be a space for displaying information about the history of Hay and of the building itself, which will form our Heritage Interpretation area. This is going to be a really exciting area, where all the work resulting from our Heritage Activity projects carried out within the community will be displayed. This information will include a map of Hay detailing an historical walking circuit around the town, as well as many other fascinating facts, true stories and archive photographs.