S OME time this week, I'll be going to Clifton on a mission, to visit the Woolies Indoor Market on Blackboy Hill.

I've been meaning to visit ever since Woolies opened eight months ago in the old Woolworths premises following the collapse of the chainstore in November 2008.

Of all the new businesses that began trading in the former Woolworths stores following the demise of the High Street giant (with debts of £38.5 million and the loss of 30,000 jobs) this seemed to bring new hope for modern retailing.

The Woolies Indoor Market in Clifton aimed to provide fledgling businesses with retail space, without requiring the sort of start-up outlay that they would have encountered if setting up their own shop.

It's a retail Aladdin's cave, where you can buy items including fresh fish, jewellery, flowers, Jamaican cakes, fashions, art, vinyl records, and hand-made soaps.

Now, at last, I've been galvanised into visiting. I'm not sure what I'll buy on my shopping mission – but I'm determined to buy something.

It will be my small protest against the protest.

Traders at Woolies say they've been badly hit by a boycott of the market that began about three weeks ago, in protest at plans to build student flats above the store.

There's no doubt that many high street businesses have experienced a slump in sales in recent months.

But if traders at Woolies are right and they're suffering because of a boycott by locals who have a dispute with the owner of the building, then it brings a new meaning to the phrase 'The Wonder of Woolies'.

It makes you wonder what on earth those involved in the boycott think they are achieving.

There are planning laws in place, and objections to any development can be made through Bristol City Council's planning department, or through councillors or the local MP.

So what's the point of deliberately damaging small traders over a planning matter involving the owner of the building they are based in?

Bristol has two universities, plus teaching hospitals, and it's hardly surprising there is a large student population.

So what's the point of making new businesses suffer because there has traditionally been a considerable student presence in many areas including – but by no means uniquely – Clifton?

Student flats were always part of the plan for the new owners' plans for the Woolworths building, and this was reported in the Evening Post last September.

Even if student flats aren't built, any flats above the store are likely to attract young, single people rather than older couples or families.

Meanwhile, the shop could end up empty if Woolies Indoor Market is forced out of business – unless the owners rent it to another retailer, a pound shop, or a chain store.

Then we will all be left wondering about what happened to Woolies.