The Well Street Market Winter Festival kicked off on Saturday, with a visit from Father Christmas, jugglers and musicians playing live on stage.

The 150-year-old market street was fully closed off to traffic for the second time in as many years and 40 stalls on both sides of the street from Valentine Road to Morning Lane.

Cllr Sade Etti, Speaker of Hackney and MP for Hackney South and Shoreditch, Meg Hillier, snipped the ribbon and declared the market open, and children from nearby Orchard Primary School sang Christmas songs.

Cllr Ian Rathbone, secretary of the Well Street Traders and Residents Association which organised the festival and raised funds for it, said: “We need to keep building our community here in this area and bringing a market back here will help us grow together as a community and bring new jobs and businesses.

“There has been a market here for nearly 200 years and we have seen a lot of interest from people wanting to run stalls when the council finally re-starts the market in 2016.”

The market is open for stalls six days a week but there is currently only one stall holder who pitches up on Friday and Saturday.

Jack Cohen, an early trader at the market in 1919 went on to become a founder of one of Britain’s most successful businesses, Tesco.