LIVERPOOL city planners are recommending the go-ahead for the relocation of Great Homer Street Market to a makeshift home on an industrial site in Dryden Street.
The proposal is for what is described a temporary accommodation for the market to enable the multi-million pound supermarket and retail scheme, Project Jennifer, to proceed in Great Homer Street.
However, the word “temporary” is open to debate in the controversial plan.
Many of the market traders are convinced they are being shunted out of Great Homer Street for good, after nearly 200 years, to make way for a development to be occupied by the big multiples.
In the original scheme for Great Homer Street, the market was earmarked as a centrepiece. But the scheme has been radically altered to effectively move the market to the edge of the development.
The application, to go before the planning committee on Tuesday, proposes to use land on Dryden Street, down the road, as a temporary location for the Great Homer Street Market for up to four years.
Planning officers insist the site is “not considered acceptable on a permanent basis” but that does not mean the traders will be going back to the original “Greaty” location at any stage.
The Dryden Street works would include the refurbishment of one of the industrial units there to provide a new indoor market with ancillary café and the demolition of the remaining industrial units to provide land to accommodate externally covered and uncovered market stalls. The proposed market would provide space for 258 stalls - this would include 80 stalls in the indoor market hall and 178 stalls in the external market area (37 of which would be covered by a permanent canopy).
The application seeks the ability to operate the market and ancillary café daily between the hours of 8am and 4pm Monday to Friday and on Sundays, and 6am to 5pm on Saturdays. The southern yard of the Dryden Street site would be resurfaced and laid out as a car park to accommodate both customer car parking and parking for trader vans.
A report to the committee says 17 objections have been lodged by email to the planning department. The opponents claim the application is misleading as it identifies the market as a temporary use but traders have been told that it will be permanent.
The fear is the move will put traders out of business and will attracted fewer customers in its proposed new home.
Planning approval was first granted in 2007 to redevelop the Great Homer Street area to provide a food-store, modern shopping units, a replacement indoor and outdoor market, improved community facilities, houses, industrial units and highway improvements.
This application was amended in 2009 and changed again in 2013 to account for market changes and retailer demands. It is anticipated work on the first phase will begin mid 2014 with a completion anticipated around 2016/17.
Going
“As part of the first phase, the existing Great Homer Street market will need to be relocated to enable the food store and shops to be constructed to create a fully functioning District Centre,” says the planning department’s report, adding, “as part of the first phase, a new market hall would be provided within the new District Centre with an area of public realm proposed to accommodate the external stalls.”
The Divisional Manager Planning notes in the report that the retail statement refers to the use of the site for the permanent relocation of the market.
“However, it is clear from the planning application that the proposal is for a temporary relocation of the market and it is on this basis which the application has been assessed,” says the Divisional Planning Manager. He adds the site is "not considered acceptable on a permanent basis".
He accepts the Dryden Street market scheme would not fully comply with retail policies, but acknowledges the proposed use would be temporary to allow the first phase of the wider regeneration proposals to be carried out, which includes the erection of a brand new market hall with outdoor market hall facilities.
The planners say the use of the Dryden Street site – essentially a business/commercial zone – as a market is acceptable for a temporary period, while a new market is built as part of the Great Homer Street District Centre. But the application makes it clear the door is being left open for the move to be permanent, depending on whether an impact assessment requirement is carried out.
