The new Market Hall

If we do get one maybe the owners will make space for an acknowledgment to past market traders
My roll of honour would have to include Mrs Atherton fishmonger supreme

My suggestion would be that watch mender at the bottom of the stairs,

I'd like to see the clock tower retained and moulded into the surroundings. It wouldn't look out of place on a plazza with outdoor eating areas.

Apparently it is not 'feasible' to keep the clock tower, because it is too integral within the structure of the existing Market Hall. for it to be retained, whilst demolishing the rest of the Market Hall structure.

i-spy

I used to take Mrs Atherton home from the Market Hall on a regular basis, there were only a few drivers who she would use, and I was one of them

She was married to a Mr Merriman, who was headmaster of Wigan Grammar school LINK

She told me quite a few tales about the Market Hall, both the old a new Market Halls

Yes, I also remember Dolly Atherton. Lovely lady and her Manx kippers were the best! From my memory I think she lived in the Sittingbourne Road area, near the old Woodfield school just past the Cherry Gardens pub on the opposite side of the road?

Yes puss, it was in that area

Roy hurst the record man. Still got LP’s with his name stamped on the covers

Posted by: Tommy Two Stroke (15283)
"Yes puss, it was in that area"
I know it was. I didn't give the exact location / address away for obvious reasons.

Unlikely to happen unless you start a movement to ask for it. I doubt the developers have much local history knowledge.

Cheshire Puss:

"I know it was. I didn't give the exact location / address away for obvious reasons"

Yoo are a clever cat

What exactly is happening about a market hall in the master plan about the re-development of the town centre?

"a new market hall including a contemporary food hall, a co-working space, and indoor market."

The Galleries Wigan

That is when they found someone who will pay for it

Posted by: Tommy Two Stroke (15286)
"Cheshire Puss:
Yoo are a clever cat"

And cats like fish

After you've eaten your fish, nip down to Tomplum's house and squeeze one out on his back lawn!

Anyroadup, there shouldn't be a market hall. A real market isn't a series of 'permanent units' in an arcade. Them's just shops!

Chesh you are welcome to catch the fish on my lawn but, if you shit on it, I will shoot you ,,,,

Posted by: tomplum (12419) View tomplum's page
Chesh you are welcome to catch the fish on my lawn but, if you shit on it, I will shoot you ,,,,

Replied: 8th Apr 2024 at 22:54

So if the Master Plan is to include a new indoor market, does it mean that the present one with the clock tower is still to be demolished and replaced with a new one on the same site?

Like I suspect, many others in Wigan, I was under the impression that the market traders were to move to one one the empty premises like the former Marketgate or the former Debenhams in the Centre Arcade and the new development was just about leisure facilities and building of accommodation.

Did you read this comment Todge?

“Apparently it is not 'feasible' to keep the clock tower, because it is too integral within the structure of the existing Market Hall. for it to be retained, whilst demolishing the rest of the Market Hall structure”

Or are you just being cynical and sarcastic?

No, just trying to clarify what is exactly is happening in the Master Plan to rejuvinate the town centre as J3mbo has said that the new development is to include a new market hall which I was under the impression was never part of the original plan of the redevelopment!

Perhaps star delta can enlighten us on what exactly will be be built on the former Galleries site?

March 2024
"Specialist groundwork contractor P.P.O’Connor is currently on site preparing the ground for the delivery of phase one which will include the new market hall and food court, a 144-bedroom hotel, the basement and associated infrastructure. This initial phase will be closely followed with the commencement of construction of the Pavilion building and the Cinema and Leisure space followed by 464 homes across seven new residential buildings and a retirement living complex"

Here

Owd Codger

Read what the Council say LINK

Owd Codger

This fella made this first video LINK nye on two and a half years ago, and on from that all the council have manged to do so far is demolish the Galleries.

I think that Wigan planners / developers / partners should sit round a table at the same time and decide what they want Wigan to do / look like. We have the flattened Galleries, large parts of the Grand Arcade are due for redevelopment already, and the Pier complex has seemingly ground to a halt. We don't want to end of with 2 of the same in different parts of town so a bit of thought about what goes where might save another demolishion job having to be performed in another 20 years. Do we need another bowling alley when we have one that's just about ticking over just a stones throw from the Pier complex ? Same with the Cinema, the one at Robin Park is having a major revamp before reopening and does at the moment have better parking facilities. Indoor golf ? Have we got a demand for this or will it be another 2 minute wonder. I think the Hilton plan is a step in the right direction but it's not going to be a draw if everything around it is shut / closing. I know the different developments are owned by different companies but it's time they got their heads together. We need to get it right this time otherwise the bulldozers will be back.

WN1 Standisher

I agree, and I wonder if this project would have gone ahead in it's present form if Lord Smith had still been leader of the council ?

If it transpires that this project is not going to go ahead in it's present form, maybe because potential investors can see that the project design is fundamentally flawed, and it would be a case of replacing one massive white elephant with another 'massive' white elephant, and we are left with just a big hole in the middle of Wigan, then I think heads should roll.

The leader of the council should then resign, and the council body in charge of thinking up this project, is it the council cabinet, well all members of that cabinet should also resign, and so both the council cabinet and this stupid redevelopment project, are both resigned to the annals of history.

People complained and demanded a change.........now they are getting that change and guess what.........they are STILL complaining.



Eeeee............thee couldnt make it t`up

Stardelta

It depends what the 'change' is, all that's changed at the moment, is that the Galleries has changed into a big hole in the ground

So if the present Market Hall is to be demolished to make way for a new Market Hall on the same site, what is happening to the market traders while the demolition and the rebuilt of the master plan is taking place?

And where has it ever been said that any of the Council Tax Payers have demanded a costly change from what was already there?

As for Tommy Two Stroke saying that the present leader of the Council and the Cabinet of the controlling Labour Group should all resigned over what as taken place on the Galleries site, there is as much chance of that happening in Wigan as pigs flying over the town hall!

OC, apparently the Market Traders will be moving into a newly created Hall at the top part of the old premises, adjacent to Market Place, then the remaining building, clock and all, will be demolished to accommodate among other things, 7 residential tower blocks. So we should end up with Legoland meets Cheshire Oaks !! I know people wanted change, probably because of all the empty stalls and units within the Galleries. There are many reasons for this, a shift in shopping habits, the Pandemic, Spiraling Business Rates and competition from the Grand Arcade, just around the corner. Yes, we'll get change, but for the sake of it. I personally think the 140 million would have been better spent converting Rylands Mill into apartments, compulsory purchase, renovate, easy on the eye, no longer a vandal hotspot, no need for Legoland on the Market Square. Winner winner........

It will be great when it's finished ,a new market,top class hotel,cinema ,bowling alley,numerous vibrant new bars and several up market apartment blocks full of young executives Wigan will be a changed place if I was 30 years younger I'd have me name down for a penthouse apartment

WN1 Standisher

Many will agree with you, especilly the wasting of £140 million on another white elephant and the eyesore overlooking Mesnes Park!

HM is correct codger.

This thing isn’t being put together for you. It’s for current and future generations and a society that is rapidly changing and leaving you and all the others who share your cynical attitudes and mindsets and who all still want to live in the past behind.

Accept it.

If you are going to get wound up and rant and rave over something at least do it over something that has relevance in your life

Did the site stalker say something?

Who is the car park area on Mesnes Street For

PeterP

star delta being a expert on the project will know!

Why can you never justify your comments and always resort to changing the subject Todger?

Oooppss…….. is that another question you will ignore.

PeterP

"Who is the car park area on Mesnes Street For"

The Market Traders.

OK people, let's throw it open. If you had a blank canvas of the Wigan area as it is today, what would you do with it ?

As it is today with a big hole in the middle of it ?

If the Metrolink comes to Wigan, then route the line from just before where it crosses the Chapel Lane bridge and run it across where the council car park is located on the opposite corner to Brocol House and then run the Metrolink up King Street, I know that is where several bars and nightclubs are located now, but that street is slowly but surely dying, then at the top of King Street at the junction with Wallgate, do some demolishing and make a Metrolink Station which will serve both train stations and that part of Wallgate and King Street etc, some Metrolink services would be routed into the Wigan Northwest Station, the Metrolink would then run up Wallgate and then down Market Street, with a station on Market Street which would serve the Market Place area and Bus Station, at the bottom of Market Street at the junction with New Market Street on the site of the old access road, where the taxi rank was located outside of Morrisons and the present Market Hall, place a more substantial Metrolink Station, which would serve whatever has replaced the site of the Galleries, and it would serve the Wigan College complexes, which have been expanding, the Yooth Zone, Mesnes Park and that part of Wigan Town Centre, the Metrolink could then run along Mesnes Street and Crompton Street with a Station on Crompton Street to serve that part of Standishgate etc

The Metrolink could then join Riverway and run along it to the junction with Darlington Street and King Street, where it would rejoin the main railway line to Manchester alongside the inward Metrolink line going towards King Street.

So that is your mass transit system in place, and would it cost a fortune to install that, because no major structures such as bridges would have to be built in Wigan Town Centre for it, and it is only the same as places like Eccles have had done.

So on the site of the old Galleries, well on the site of the old underground service area, build a multistorey car park, to serve whatever is put on to the site, whether it be a hotel and leisure facilities etc, as regards a new Market Hall, I suppose you could keep the present Market Hall and completely refurbish it, putting in a food Pavillion or build a new one on the site of the old Marketgate as is planned now, and if there is any land left over, then landscape it with garden area's, but leave it earmarked for any future developments which maybe done in Wigan Town Centre, just let the area evolve on it's own, because no one knows what the future will bring, and convert the Pagefield/Rylands Mill into flats, instead of building multi storey flats on the site as is planned now

Ooooh Tommy for town planner!

Maybe the Meterolink idea was a bit too ambitious

So there is the blot on the landscape, and it is a bloody big blot too.


You could sell a big chunk off to a supermarket company, allowing them to build a large hypermarket with associated parking, along the size of the Asda at Newtown

If we need an area Representative for Transport Tommy, you'd be in the frame. Any more for any more folks ? As you can see with Tommy's ariel shot, it's a big area to go at.