Greens support flagship Birkenhead market
But Labour and Tory Cllrs vote to impose moving traders under car park
Cllr Jo Bird said: I’d like to appreciate everyone in the public seats who has come today. Particularly those who have spoken so well about the livelihoods that are at stake here. There is a really wide range of stakeholders that oppose the move to Argos.
The traders as we’ve heard from. They said they feel betrayed. They’re not consulted with. They reject this proposal.
Members of the public, 1,700 of whom have signed a petition against the move to Argos.
There’s the current Birkenhead MP and
Local Green ward Councillors.
It’s been several months since this proposal was first muted and talked about. It’s really disappointing that we’re still in a position where there is so much disagreement on this. I would’ve hoped that we could’ve moved forward together.
Because it’s really important. Birkenhead does deserve a flagship mark market. One that we could all be proud of. That’s big enough for everyone who’s currently trading in the market. No traders no market. It’s really simple. A market that’s affordable for the council within the government grants that it has.
I haven’t heard that the government withdraw the funding. I don’t think the government would refuse to extend the funding deadline if that’s the position we get into.
What the market traders, the public and many people are saying, is they want a pause. They want time to actually sit down together and negotiate - to agree a way forward, to resolve the concerns that have been raised, for example about cost and time out. The BDP report said there was no need to move traders from the existing site while part of the site was refurbished.
There are good reasons to pause, to allow time for more discussions to happen, to allow time for the incoming director of regeneration to get to grips with the issue, to allow the temperature and the heat to come out a little bit also. It would particularly allow what this motion is proposing which is more detailed report to the next convenient meeting of this committee. And that more detailed report should be looking at the refurbishing of the existing Birkenhead market site including a number of key issues to consider and factors to balance. I don’t feel factors have balanced in the current report or current officer recommendations.
I do think we can move forward together.
We’ve got a fantastic traders community
We’ve got fantastic customers community people that shop in the market
We can work together
We’ve got at least £13.7 million of government grant to spend
There’s a really good existing site it’s well known it’s been there for several decades
There’s more entrepreneurs that want to move in and come into the market
We’ve got decent officers who are very competent at bringing forward these kind of proposals
We can have a flagship market if we put the time in to work together to create it.
Thank you.