Council scrapping sections of delayed and over budget Bilston Market improvements

City of Wolverhampton Council has submitted its own planning application making a number of changes to its much-delayed and over budget improvements to Bilston’s outdoor market.

A proposed 12-metre ‘beacon’ and a number of benches and planters have been removed from the market’s designs and plans for solar panels and new signs and entrances have also been scrapped.

Some pavements, thoroughfares and car parks would also be cleaned and repaired rather than resurfaced.

The town’s outdoor market stalls were re-located last October for the then proposed year-long work to build a ‘state-of-the-art’ replacement.

However, the work to the 200-year-old market is now not expected to be finished until June 2026 – eight months later than planned.

The council has already agreed a further £2.5m for the new market which sees the total cost rise by more than a third from £6.4m to £8.9m.

The planning application said: “The development has been tendered and construction cost has exceeded allowable budget.

“Therefore, an extensive value engineering process has resulted in several items to be altered, omitted, [and] postponed from the granted development.”

According to the application, a proposed 12-metre ‘beacon’ at the market’s bus station entrance will not be built – with the council saying the proposed feature to mark the market as a “‘key destination” was “not good value for money.”

Plans for a large sign on the side of the indoor market have also been scrapped.

A new market sign along the busy Black Country Route is also among those features scrapped as they would only be visible from drivers ‘through gaps in trees and during the winter months.’

Plans to put solar panels and lights on the new outdoor market roof have also been removed to save money and the market’s two existing trader car parks would remain and ‘repaired where needed’ rather than resurfaced.

The promised upgrades to the indoor market’s entrances have also been removed from the plans and “would be carried out at a future date” according to the council’s planning application.

Many of the features of the new ‘public park’ on the corner of the refurbished market have also been scrapped with benches and planters no longer being installed. A proposed ‘free-standing structure’ has also been removed from the designs.

Market Way, the thoroughfare between the indoor and outdoor markets, and the area in front of the market’s entrance between Bilston bus station, would be jetwashed and steam cleaned rather than replaced, the council said.

Diagonal paving has also been scrapped to save money and prevent waste.

The long delay to the work has hit traders with City of Wolverhampton Council having to cut rent by a quarter for more than 10 months to support them during the work.

The decision to re-locate the town’s outdoor market has also hit trade at its indoor market with stallholders complaining of a drop in footfall.

The council has said the market will deliver “the absolute best market in the West Midlands” – with more modern, accessible and “vibrant spaces” for traders and the local community.

The council said it was also spending £15,000 on events and activities in and around the indoor market to help attract more people during the nearly year-long work.

Bilston’s outdoor market relocated to the town’s high street last October to allow for work on the new multi-million-pound facility to start.

The stallholders were told to prepare to be back on the new site by October this year but the delay means the market will celebrate its bicentennial as a building site.

The old outdoor market has been flattened but was left as a pile of rubble for months as work ground to a halt following a number of tricky surveys.

The council said the surveys, that could only be carried out once the stalls had moved, found “poor” ground conditions that resulted in a re-design to carry out the works as planned.

This had also resulted in a further £2.5m being set aside and delay to the start of the work on the new market, the council added.

The council dismissed rumours the market site had been sold with cabinet member for resident services Cllr Bhupinder Gakhal saying the work was still on course to be completed by October.

However, a few weeks later the council revealed the work would be delayed by eight months and cost an extra £2.5m.