Cheadle and Gatley Lib Dems are moving
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by Lib Dem team on 25 April, 2016
Breathing life back into Stockport’s historic marketplace is a key part of the Lib Dem strategy to revive our town centre. Almost everyone agrees that changes are needed.
Despite many recent improvements, there are too few people spending money in Stockport’s market and council taxpayers currently subsidise it to the tune of £200,000 a year.
A thriving marketplace is important not just for the market traders themselves but for the many shops, pubs and cafes around the Marketplace and on Underbanks which rely on the draw of a successful market to bring customers to their door. Unless the market can attract more people, many of these other businesses may not survive.
Views among market traders themselves are mixed. Some have said they want to stay in their current location. Others, including all the outdoor traders, say they would prefer to move to a busier part of the town like Merseyway, which would help them improve their businesses.
The Council is now looking at two main options:
When councillors have all the information, a decision will be made – we hope in the next 2-3 months. We want to see Stockport’s historic marketplace once again become the beating heart of the town, the shops in the Marketplace and Underbanks thriving and the existing market traders improving their business. Our aim is to choose the option that best achieves these goals.
8 Comments
I think to put an Artisan food market inside the market Hall and move the traders would be suicide. It is only my opinion that the best option would be to put it in to the food hall that already exists, and boost the indoor and outdoor traders. I cannot imagine anybody doing their shopping in town, then climbing the market brew just to go and eat. However, I do think it makes sense, to put it into the food hall as an attraction obviously, then people can shop in the market place , go and try the Artisan food hall have lunch whatever, then shop around the market again accessing all the shops around, the vintage area sent Mary’s heritage centre stage door story Museum, so much attraction in there , if this Artisan food hall is to go ahead and use it as an attraction for the rest , don’t move it. !! Jean Poyner.
Are you saying that people who shop in stockport then don’t go to the cafes in the market for something to eat because they have to climb the hill?, The food hall would be to small for a Artisan food hall.
When I visited the Altrincham market food hall it was very busy but the rest of the market and the town centre were dead.
If the indoor market becomes an Artisan food hall, what then happens to the pubs and cafes around ? Will they not lose business ? and also what will happen to the Artisan Food Hall when all the proposed restaurants and eateries open on the Bridgefield site ?
Paul – at the moment the marketplace is normally quiet and outside market days it’s pretty dead. If more people are coming to the market for food, I’d expect business for the pubs and cafes would go up. An artisan food hall wouldn’t take the existing customers away from the pubs, it would bring new people in.
The Red Rock development will offer a different sort of restaurant – again, I don’t see that taking people away from the marketplace.
The Altrincham scheme has attracted many people from outside the borough and so one would hope the same would happen in Stockport.
i went to the market yesterday, first time in ages as I usually work on a Saturday. It wasn’t a shadow of its former self. The stalls that were there were great but too few of them. Maybe making the market hall into a destination is a good idea, but it would be sad to see the traders moved into the grotty surroundings of Mersey Way. I think artisan or independent traders are a great idea but need to be part of the market not segregated. Keep all the independents together, cafe bars, restaurants and traders to draw people in and leave the chain stores and warmed up frozen food providers to Red Rocks. Also the weeds growing out of the bridge over Underbank need sorting.
Stockport needs to start feeling better about itself. The market as it stands is a dead man walking. The Altrincham market is a thriving popular hub almost all day.
Currently there is virtually nowhere decent to eat in Stockport.
The council plans to regenerate merseyway mean that the relocated market can occupy a purpose built position (presumably, Iain) and it becomes a win win for the town.