East London market traders shut out of their businesses with immediate effect

• ITV News London's Helen Keenan has this report.

Traders in east London have had their businesses closed after the company that runs the site went into administration.

Market Village in Stratford Centre was home to over 60 traders and had been serving local customers since 1974.

The site owners have filed for administration and ITV News London understands administrators will take over in February. There is no guarantee the market will reopen.

Newham Council owns the land on which the Stratford Centre is built - but it is not the landlord to Market Village. They say they are supporting the traders.

Pinky Nankani has run her two hair and beauty shops inside Market Village for 12 years.

“I’ve just renovated my two shops, just last month. If they had any indication, they should have told me not to renovate it because it's going to close.

“But nothing. They were very happy that I was renovating and that it’s looking nice.

“All my clients were very happy and we were happy as well.

“Then suddenly we get the shocking news. I’m so upset.”

Wade Fraser-Trout and Samantha Scott own GT Spice Caribbean Takeaway they started a petition to get the market reopened.

Wade says that the sudden closure is hard to take in: “I’m distressed since this has happened it has been stressful.

“Sitting around wondering around checking the texts and the emails. It's just hard to take in.

“Hard to take in that this has actually happened to Market Village.”

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Samantha added: “The night before [the notice came] we were prepping for the next day. Because of Christmas I just did a big meat and produce shop our fridge and freezers were full.

“They told us to come in for three hours to take out perishable goods, so we emptied out our fridges and freezers.

“We didn’t have anywhere to put all the stuff so we’ve lost all that. The rest of our equipment is still in the unit.”

Ben Khan described the notice that he received as ‘like a 5-year-old child wrote it’.

For 25 years, he has run Beauty Queen Cosmetics he had no inkling that the closure was going to happen.

“It was out of the blue. We had no warning anything at all, literally, we were just told we could not open tomorrow. We are going into administration and that was it.”

“We were devastated honestly. It's our livelihood we don’t have any other means of income. A lot of us have started from scratch.

The market has been there longer than Westfield and the Olympic Park.

Ben added: “We’ve got our regular footfall. We cater to the local community.

“We even had Westfield come in. We were in a state of panic then but we’re still here. Still surviving. Still grafting.

“And for them to come in and do this to us. I think it's very, very unfair and not right to be honest.”

“It’s absolutely ridiculous it's not right at all.”

ITV London News have contacted the owners of Market Village for a response.

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