Wirral Council must restore ‘squandered’ Birkenhead goodwill
The saga that has engulfed the future of the town’s market has eroded trust in the authority’s ability to deliver regeneration, according to opposition councillors.
On Thursday, Wirral Council’s economy, regeneration, and housing committee voted to halt work on relocating Birkenhead’s market to the former Argos unit on Princess Pavement in the face of backlash from traders.
Work on evaluating alternative options will now begin as the council looks to rebuild trust with the local community, many of whom disagreed with the Argos plan from the outset.
Wirral Council approved the £12m plan to move the market to the former Argos unit in March 2024 but it proved unpopular.
The council also gave the nod to Seddon Construction to carry out preliminary work this March however, the contract between the parties will now be ripped up before it was even signed.
Speaking at Thursday’s meeting, Cllr Pat Cleary of the Green Party said the Labour-run council’s approach to regeneration projects like the market would have to change going forward.
“We have to be collegiate in its very broadest sense if we are going to achieve a meaningful outcome and restore the good will of the people of Birkenhead,” Cleary said.
“They did have a lot of good for what we were doing for regeneration a couple of years ago but that has been squandered and needs to be restored.”
Cllr Stuart Kelly, a Lib Dem councillor, also hopes lessons could be learned from the market debacle.
“We cannot take forward any regeneration initiatives that affect communities without having these people on board,” he said.
Options now being considered are as follows:
- Refurb the existing 90,000 sq ft market in full or in part
- Close the market and not create a new one
- Relocate traders into the Pyramids Shopping Centre or Grange Precinct on an interim or permanent basis
- New-build option in a suitable location.
The initial plan for the market was to move it to the former House of Fraser store. However, this was scrapped after costs for the project spiralled to £31.6m, significantly higher than the £24m 2021 cost estimate, it was reported in 2023.
No one will trust this council again for a very long time.
By Anonymous
It’s time some sense of reality on costings for what appear to be relatively simple moves. Someone needs to take responsibility for negotiating prices to a competitive level and someone to project manage but with experience in their fields . Then we might see value for our money and efficiency to completion??
By Peter Lord
Why not retrofit the existing market hall? I can imagine a talented local practice like Studio MUTT doing something interesting with this.
By Rye
Well said Peter Lord
By Birkonian
Problem Wirral Council has is that opportunistic opposition parties decry the minority Labour administration’s financial management while never wanting to make any difficult decisions on balancing the books themselves. Instead we have the Greens here demanding even more be thrown into the money pit that the Market has been for years. If indoor markets made money, or even covered their running costs, there would be a lot more of them elsewhere.
Lib Dems in Liverpool have a similar habit of demanding better financial management, not unreasonably, but then noisily opposing any attempt to turn off the money tap as with St John’s Market.
By Rotringer