NEW REGULATORY FRAMEWORK FOR CITY MARKETS
2024/11/10
Madrid City Council approves the modification of the Municipal Markets Ordinance to adapt them to current consumption and leisure habits.
- The new provisions allow municipal markets to be adapted to the current needs of the population and to resolve regulatory dysfunctions to grant concessionaires greater effectiveness and efficiency in the management of establishments.
- Recreational and social activities such as parades and concerts are held, as well as tastings and samplings, which can occupy up to 50% of the common space.
- With 45 municipal markets, Madrid is the European city with the most spaces of this type, in which the City Council has invested 48 million euros since 2019.
- The text, published in the Official Gazette of the Community of Madrid on November 8, 2024, came into force on November 9, 2024.
As of today, Madrid has updated municipal market regulations that adapt the structure and use of these establishments to the current needs of citizens and allow concessionaires greater flexibility and autonomy in management. The modified text of the Madrid Municipal Markets Ordinance, approved this morning at the Plenary Session of the City Council, includes one of the objections presented during the public information period and six amendments from opposition municipal groups that qualify the initial text approved by the Governing Board without altering its philosophy and spirit.
The amendment to the Municipal Markets Ordinance, which came into force on 9 November, after being published in the Official Gazette of the Community of Madrid on 8 November, seeks to improve the quality standards of the service offered in municipal markets, adapt them to the new consumption habits of Madrid residents and resolve regulatory dysfunctions to allow concessionaires to operate more effectively and efficiently. It also reflects the City Council's commitment to markets as symbols of the city's identity, vehicles for social cohesion in neighbourhoods, tourist attractions and drivers of economic growth.
More tasting and leisure areas and a boost to entrepreneurship and sustainability
The Delegate for Economy, Innovation and Finance, Engracia Hidalgo, has argued that “the text approved today defines more clearly the areas that can be found in municipal markets and expands the catalogue of activities that can be developed within them and which include parades and concerts”. According to Hidalgo, “in response to the demand and the growing use of these spaces as shared patios for meeting and gathering around a gastronomic, social and recreational offer, the new text expands the maximum surface area that can be used for food tastings, samplings and consumption, which can reach 50% of the common areas”.
The delegate also explained that “service provision hours are also made more flexible and changes are introduced that allow progress in sustainable mobility and decarbonisation, facilitating the installation of infrastructure for the electric recharging of vehicles in the car park and including new types of areas for storing bicycles and zero-emission urban mobility vehicles”.
This amendment also incorporates improvements in regulatory techniques into the current ordinance, updates some references that had become obsolete, and includes new content on sanctions and coercive fines.
In addition, to strengthen legal certainty, measures have been added that support transparency in the transfer of premises, such as the prohibition of transferring the exercise of the activity without transferring the ownership of the premises or the alteration of the configuration of the facades of the premises and common spaces of the market that border on commercial corridors, without the required authorization, as well as the obstruction of practices to advance in the circular economy.
Municipal priority: 48 million euros in support for markets
Madrid is the European city with the most municipal markets. Its 45 establishments, in addition to three active producers' markets, plus a fourth one up for tender, are a priority within the City Council's Comprehensive Strategy to Strengthen Commercial and Hospitality Activity in the City 2024-2027. The latest to open, this October, was the San Cristóbal Municipal Market, the first municipally-owned school market in Europe, located in Chamartín and which will supply the Madrid Nuevo Norte area.
In addition to being benchmarks in healthy eating based on fresh, local and seasonal products and local commerce, in recent years they have become benchmark gastronomic spaces and meeting and leisure places, attracting a growing number of users.
For these reasons, the City Council has invested more than 48 million euros in them since 2019. In 2024 alone, more than 8 million euros will be injected, of which 4.6 million euros are destined for reforms that will benefit 25 municipal markets; 856,000 euros are granted for aid for the digitalisation of 33 municipal markets; 286,000 for aid for revitalization, nearly 300,000 for the incentive of entrepreneurship in the markets through the payment of the rates of the premises and more than 2 million euros for the reduction of rates through the 95% bonus of the IBI fee from which 100% of the markets and their traders benefit.
Municipal markets and their adaptation to consumer habits
The result of this commitment by the local Government team, which is completed with the approval of the modification of the current ordinance, is the existence of a network of modernized municipal markets that have been able to adapt to new needs, made up of 2,252 commercial premises, of which 1,879 were open as of September 30, 2024, representing more than 83% of the total number of premises and practically 90% of the commercial surface area of the markets.
Of these stalls, more than 1,500 (67% of the total) correspond to commercial activities (1,238 small food shops, 256 small non-food shops, 26 supermarkets and two medium-sized non-food stores), 263 (less than 12%) are in the hospitality industry and 128 (just over 5%) are intended for other services or alternative uses, including six gyms, a music academy and a flamenco academy.
The activities carried out in the markets confirm their position as the reference format for purchasing food, especially fresh products, and demonstrate the growing demand for consumption of ready-made dishes, an activity that is gaining more and more strength and provides customers with the added value of convenience without having to give up the advantages of market cuisine.
In addition, the tasting activity is one of the main attractions for attracting new customers and an essential asset for consolidating markets as social centers that are the backbone of neighborhood life.