YOUNG entrepreneurs from Llandrindod Wells set up ‘pop up’ market stall in the town to cash in over the Easter weekend.

The youth market was inspired by similar organisations, that Llandrindod town champion Jude Boutle had seen in Stockport in northern England.

As town champion Ms Boutle is involved in boosting economic activity and supporting regeneration schemes in Llandrindod.

She said: “The idea of the youth market is to compliment the town and its existing shops and businesses by bringing more footfall in.”

Diana Beryman, another leader of the project, is involved from a community perspective through her employment with Cynefin, a Welsh Government initiative to regenerate communities.

She said: “The first market was linked in with Support Your High Street Week and many local businesses supported the event as well as schools, colleges and other community organisations. The youth market is really useful to the young people involved for many reasons. Its not just about learning how to set up a stall and sell things, there is also a performance aspect to it and the young volunteers are responsible for organising entertainment.”

Eighteen stalls were set up at the first youth market which was held at the end of last September. It was a success for many of the young entrepreneurs involved.

Teenage stallholders heard about the youth market through an enterprise day at Llandrindod secondary school.

Felicity Bulbulbia and Rhys Gough are two young students who have formed a partnership and created a food stall called ‘PopPeople’. Their main product is popcorn which they make on site and sell hot.

They have done their market research and have been careful to ensure that all of the products that they use have been bought locally.

Rhys and Felicity would said they had been supported by Vans Good Food store. The pair have been so successful with their sales so far, that they have been able to use the profits to invest in a crepe machine, to expand for this month’s market.

Rhys, 13 said: “It’s just great to see that when we’re older we will have a chance to do what we want and there are already things out there that we are capable of.”

The pair were asked to attend business boot camp in November 2015, a three day programme run by Big ideas Wales, where they met other entrepreneurs and made connections with the NomNom chocolates company of Pembrokeshire.

Felicity, 14 said: “It’s nice to know that even though we’re not adults we can do it.”

Rhys Perkins, 14 uses the market stall to advertise his gardening business called Pops Gardening Services. He uses a picture board and a display of tools to attract customers, a technique that has been successful so far.

At the first youth market he attracted 10 new customers and made a net profit of £750. Rhys said: “I started off with one mower that my mum bought me and I have expanded a great deal from there. My vision for the future is to move on to study tree surgery.”

Ben Williams, 14 also turns a profit on his traditional cake stall. Ben said: “I did some market research to find the most popular cake flavours and stuck with those to give the people what they want.”

Ben also used his computer skills to create and maintain the youth market website. He said: “I taught myself to build websites at the age of eight.”

Geoff Greaves is another volunteer from the local community who got involved with the youth market through his involvement with the May Fayre and the Radnor Fringe festivals. Both of these organisations have now offered members of the youth market a place at the events.

He said: “The youth market has got its own place in the community. It was formed to fit into Radnorshire and it works here in an interesting way.”