A pop-up shop housing an indoor market and community space, and fronted with a huge image of historic heroine Ada Salter, has been turning heads in Bermondsey.
Community Opportunity, a new social enterprise and charity, opened its Bermondsey Uprising store opposite the market square in Southwark Park Road last Thursday.
The shop, which offers everything from toys, gifts and accessories, to clothes and crafts, has been launched as part of a wider project to breathe new life into the Blue market.
Businesses and entrepreneurs can set up their own stalls within the shop and the community can use the space to host events.
Emma Snow, founder of Community Opportunity, has been given funding by United St Saviour’s Charity to run the venture for an initial ten-week trial period.
But, if successful, it is hoped it could become a permanent fixture in the area.
Speaking to the News, Emma, 38, said: “We saw that the space was unused and the market was developing as well so, as local people, we wanted to get involved and create something that really benefits the community and is fun and inviting and has both practical things you can buy and fun activities for people of all ages.
“We’ve already managed to increase the market stalls in the Blue on a Saturday from about four to eighteen including all our individual stalls in the big marquee.
“They are letting us use the market place for events and markets when we want such as Zumba and an Indian percussion workshop which are both run on Saturdays for free.
“The shop has been very well received and we are inviting proposals from the community about how they would like to see it used.”
The pop-up shop has been named after Bermondsey Women’s Uprising – a famous women’s strike which Ada Salter, former mayor of Bermondsey and first female mayor in London, helped organise in the early 1900s.
Historian and author Graham Taylor donated a number of his Ada Salter Pioneer of Ethical Socialism books to be sold in the shop at a discounted price.