Market 'will not be destroyed' by revamp plans

An authority is not "out to destroy" a market which is due to be transformed as part of a £12.6m Civic Quarter project, a councillor said.

Simon Smith, executive councillor for finance and resources at Cambridge City Council, addressed worries that planned works to improve Market Square could potentially threaten it.

Changes to the market have been proposed by the council under its Civic Quarter project, which also included plans to improve the Guildhall and the Corn Exchange.

Smith said: "There are people worried that we are about to destroy the market; if there is one thing about the 1,200-year market it is resilience."

The plans included resurfacing Market Square to improve accessibility, replacing stalls with 27 new permanent stalls under a lightweight canopy and building 64 demountable stalls for "additional trading" on weekends and busier months.

The council estimated the project would cost around £12.6million, but has only proposed to invest £3m to resurface the market at this stage.

The Local Democracy Reporting Service said some market traders had shared concerns about the proposals including the market becoming smaller and questioning whether the demountable stalls would be usable.

Smith said the project was still in the early stages and the authority would discuss designs and proposals with traders and the public.

During a full council meeting on Thursday, he said: "It survived Vikings, Norman Conquest, several outbreaks of the Black Death, Civil War, multiple harvest failures, innumerable economic recessions, two world wars, can we just get a sense of perspective in this city, this council is not out to destroy the market."

A planning application for the work was due to be submitted next summer.

Liberal Democrat councillor, Karen Young, supported the aims of the project and said upgrades to the Guildhall could reduce costs for the council.

"These are not nice to have, not luxury projects, [but] they are very important for our city," she said.

However, Labour councillor Mark Ashton said while he agreed with the project, he said there was a "big difference between vision and reality".

He said the council needed to be careful it was not "biting off more than it can chew" and show the people of Cambridge how the work would be funded "without implications to them."

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