THE popular Sunday car boot sale at Derby's Cattle Market could return by the end of this month, the city council has said.
It was temporarily closed from Sunday, June 1, with the authority previously saying that it was down to staff at the event "choosing not to carry on with their jobs".
Councillor Martin Rawson, who is responsible for the event, told a full council meeting last night that these staff had been working on a
"casual overtime basis" and did not want to keep doing this.
He said negotiations with a contractor to run the car boot were now "advanced" and that the aim was to re-open by the end of September.
Mr Rawson said this was necessary as an interim measure because attempts to find new staff to run the
event had "failed to attract either the necessary
quality or quantity of candidates".
At last night's meeting held at the Council House, councillor Mick Barker asked for confirmation that the Labour council did not intend to privatise it.
Mr Rawson said there were no plans for this and re-
affirmed the council's support for the car boot.
He said: "It is an extremely important facility for the city in terms of allowing people to recycle unwanted goods, reducing the waste cost to the council in doing so.
"It also provides a facility for people who are in the poorest of circumstances to be able to access good value goods.
"There have been one or two issues with staff and we have made it a priority to get the car boot re-started as quickly as possible."
Mr Rawson said that the cost to the council of the car boot sale closure had been £40,000 due to lost revenue from people paying to sell there.
He said this would be "managed within the markets revenue budget".
He added that the aim was to get the event up and running again on the last Sunday of this month.
Last night, Mr Rawson was unable to say what the exact numbers of council staff were that worked at the car boot sale but said that levels would remain about the same when they go back to running it again.
Julian de Mowbray, the authority's head of trading standards, had previously said: "A review determined that a maximum of seven staff will be required to staff future car boots."
He said it was not appropriate to comment on the reasons why individuals chose not to carry on with their car boot jobs.
When the first event was cancelled, the authority was criticised for not providing enough information about the closure.
A notice about the cancellation was first put up on the council's website on the Friday before, but the authority said it was proactive in letting people know about it in other ways.
