New video shows plans to transform empty Marks and Spencer store

A new video shows how traders are hoping to turn a vacant Marks and Spencer store into an independent market.

Birkenhead Market traders are currently exploring how to set up an independent trader-led market in the former Marks and Spencer premises in the Pyramids shopping center in Wirral. A market has existed in some form in the town since 1835, but traders are currently looking to make their way following a controversial decision by Wirral Council to turn a former Argos unit on Princes Pavements into the market’s new location until 2026.

Marks and Spencer left the city center store in 2018 and it is under a lease until 2042 for £235,000 a year, according to a property document. In an email to trader Alan Featherstone, the company said it was open to allowing a new Birkenhead market to be run from the premises, with traders helping to pay the lease.

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The idea of ​​a new market in the vacant unit in St Johns Square was first mooted in 2019 and proved popular with traders. However, Wirral Council felt it was too expensive as Marks and Spencer would have to give up the lease at the time and the local authority did not own the Pyramids shopping center at the time.

In April, Mr Featherstone, who runs The Big Flower Shop with his son Will, applied for a market rights licence, which, if granted, opens the door for a new market to operate in the borough. The council’s policy was set out to help “safeguard the trading success of the (Birkenhead) market and make trading decisions that support traders”.

Now traders have appealed for people to contact Wirral Council’s licensing department to give their views on the proposal “because we need all the support we can get”. In a social media post, the traders told people to “tell the council what you want in Birkenhead” ahead of the May 28 deadline.

They claim M&S would be “a suitable location” as a “very small” Argos “will have a negative impact on the many traders in Birkenhead Market”. Traders who spoke to the ECHO previously said they agreed with Marks and Spencer’s proposal, believing it was their only option to keep long-running family businesses afloat.

Mr Featherstone believes the community market could complement the council’s plans to regenerate Birkenhead and complement any different market offer in Argos, adding: “What it would also do is give the council the opportunity to demolish the current market more quickly , which would help them get the rents in their office buildings.”

He previously said: “He is trying to move forward in a positive way. All traders want this. So far I’ve only had one who said “I’m not going to do that because when this market closes I’m going to retire.” I want the council to see the logic in this, to see that it’s a good idea for the town center and the traders.”

After running a business for many years, Mr Featherstone said: “What I’m trying to do is pay it forward to the next generation,” adding: “It’s the right thing to do because I don’t think we’re going to meet the criteria. by the council will mean the loss of jobs as well as our business”.

Costs for the refurbishment are expected to be paid for by Mr Featherstone himself as well as some traders with a figure of around £1m proposed.

He said: “It’s a huge hall. It’s not something where we’re going to have to start knocking down walls,” adding: “You’ll see when you walk in when you walk in the front door all the shops in the middle that are below eye level.

“You will be able to see every trade in the stands. It will be wide and open and clean and you can see every stall full.”

Plans submitted by retailers will continue to be subject to an agreed lease with Marks and Spencer. Wirral Council, as the current owners of the Pyramids Shopping Centre, will also need to approve the lease as well as any potential planning consent that may be required.

After some traders raised concerns that “the council would not allow this”, a Wirral Council spokesman said: “Work to deliver the new Birkenhead Market remains a key focus of the authority’s ambitions for Birkenhead town centre.

“The council will continue to work with Birkenhead Market Traders Association (BMTA) and engage with traders on the proposals for the new Birkenhead Market.

“The intention is to provide a sustainable and popular market and the proposals followed a series of meetings between council staff, market experts and those trading at Birkenhead Market to find the best way this can be achieved.”

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