Indoor market traders in Shipley are refusing to hand over £1,000 in service charges to Bradford Council amid claims they were kept in the dark before new landlords took over.

The traders are angry they were not better informed by market bosses during talks about the future.

David Burke, who represents the Shipley indoor traders in the National Market Traders' Federation, said it was only mid-July when they were told officially that Bradford Council would be pulling out of the lease and the running of the and handing it over to Leeds-based agency B P Towler. The firm will take on the upkeep for landlords London & Associated Properties, who have owned the building since 1961.

Mr Burke said: "We needed to know what the future held 12 months before the actual handover at the end of September. Two stallholders actually gave up because they couldn't plan ahead."

And he said emotions ran even higher among traders when standards of cleanliness were left to drop in the last fortnight of Bradford's care, causing stallholders to withhold two weeks of service charges in protest.

Mr Burke said: "Toilets weren't cleaned properly and the place looked neglected. They took attendants off to do other duties." He said traders were outraged when market bosses later painted "a rosy picture" of the hand-over.

Secretary of the NMTF's Shipley Indoor Branch, Adrian Hillary, said the traders had no grudge against the new landlords, who had been positive.

The Council's Customer Services Director, Wallace Sampson, said he would be arranging to meet tenants who have not yet paid their outstanding service charges to talk about their concerns. But about the alleged drop in standards, he said: "I could find no reason to uphold their complaints."