Long wait for market will 'kill it off'

Traders are unlikely to return to Brownhills Market until the start of 2013, it emerged today.

Construction of the new Tesco is not expected to begin until 2012 and will take up to 11 months to finish, say supermarket bosses.

A market boss today said he feared the three-year wait would kill the market off for good. A new-look pitch is being created for the 40-year-old market as part of the Silver Street scheme. The existing site has been standing empty since March and Walsall Council chiefs want to revive it by moving to a more prominent site.

However, the new supermarket needs planning permission and spokeswoman Amy O'Toole said bosses do not expect construction to begin until the early part of 2012.

Tony Larner, chairman of the Walsall Market Traders' Association, said: "I fear it is the end of Brownhills Market.

"People are not going to hang around waiting and will find alternative markets, especially over such a time period."

The revised plans for the new-look Tesco were revealed this week and could lead to the demolition of a nearby Ravenscourt shopping centre.

Brownhills' senior citizens' centre is also earmarked to be flattened in the new proposal — which includes only three new shops instead of the 12 originally planned.

The proposed scheme takes up half of the existing Brownhills Market site although a patch of wasteland next to Kwik Fit has been earmarked for the relocation of stalls.

Members of the senior citizens' centre are currently in talks about a new home and council regeneration chiefs have reassured businesses in the shopping centre they will help to try to find them a new home.

The market has been at the centre of a long-running saga over the last 12 months.

It initially shut last July after previous operators failed to negotiate a new lease.

The council then took over the market in September but the Tuesday event was axed at the beginning of the year because it attracted just a handful of stalls each week and traders also no longer attend on Saturdays.