{"id":17434,"date":"2025-09-12T21:18:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T21:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/17434\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T21:18:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T21:18:10","slug":"plans-to-move-birkenhead-market-abandoned-by-wirral-council","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/17434\/","title":{"rendered":"Plans to move Birkenhead market abandoned by Wirral Council"},"content":{"rendered":"

A decision to move a market has been scrapped after years of arguments about a plan that has already cost taxpayers more than \u00a31m.<\/p>\n

Wirral Council’s leader Paula Basnett said she was “delighted” to cancel a proposed move of Birkenhead Market to a former Argos site in the town.<\/p>\n

The Argos plans were first revealed by the Local Democracy Reporting Service<\/a> in September 2023. <\/p>\n

Wirral Council is to view a number of options “as a matter of urgency” with a likely option being the revamp of the current market next to the Pyramids Shopping Centre. <\/p>\n

Basnett said she and her deputy were listening to traders, but “more importantly we are acting upon what they are asking for”. <\/p>\n

Greg McTigue, vice-chair of the organisation representing market traders, said he felt “unbounded joy” that the Argos plan had been scrapped.<\/p>\n

Mr McTigue said the council’s current political leadership “seem to be very much on the side of the people and the traders rather than the pen-pushers,” adding: “We have a feeling that their sympathies are on our side.<\/p>\n

“At the end of the day we do know it’s down to what is in the till and what is going to be possible. I think they are still working on that.”<\/p>\n

Joe Orr, who faced being “kicked out” with his rug stall, said: “It always felt that decision was against us and not ‘for the traders’.”<\/p>\n

He added: “Options on the table now feel ‘for the traders’.”<\/p>\n

The government has given the council an extra 12 months to deliver the new market, taking the deadline to 2028.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A decision to move a market has been scrapped after years of arguments about a plan that has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17435,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[72,61,60,123],"class_list":{"0":"post-17434","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-markets","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-markets"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17434\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}