{"id":278098,"date":"2025-10-04T22:06:17","date_gmt":"2025-10-04T22:06:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/278098\/"},"modified":"2025-10-04T22:06:17","modified_gmt":"2025-10-04T22:06:17","slug":"council-scraps-several-bilston-market-features-to-save-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/278098\/","title":{"rendered":"Council scraps several Bilston Market features to save money"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christian BarnettLocal Democracy Reporter, Wolverhampton<\/p>\n

\"GreigGreig & Stephenson Architects<\/p>\n

A 12-metre beacon which marks the market as a “‘key destination” is among features being shelved<\/p>\n

Several features of the multi-million-pound improvements to Bilston Market are set to be scrapped to save money.<\/p>\n

City of Wolverhampton Council has submitted its own planning application making a number of changes to its delayed and over budget improvements to Bilston’s outdoor market.<\/p>\n

The council has agreed a further \u00a32.5m for the new market which sees the total cost rise by more than a third from \u00a36.4m to \u00a38.9m.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Some pavements, thoroughfares and car parks would also be cleaned and repaired rather than resurfaced.<\/p>\n

Once completed, it will give traders and customers better access, a new canopy, new toilets, stall improvements and upgraded public spaces.<\/p>\n

The town’s outdoor market stalls were re-located last October for the then proposed year-long work to build a replacement.<\/p>\n

However, the work to the 200-year-old market is now not expected to be finished until June 2026, which is eight months later than planned.<\/p>\n

The council’s planning application said: “The development has been tendered and construction cost has exceeded allowable budget.<\/p>\n

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

Councillor Bhupinder Gakhal, cabinet member for resident services at the Labour-run local authority, said: “It is an absolute priority for us, and the main works are progressing well to deliver for our traders and the people of Bilston.<\/p>\n

“Prior to works getting under way, surveys revealed far more challenging ground conditions at the site than we had anticipated, so we have had to re-engineer and adjust parts of the project \u2013 but we are not compromising on our ambition to develop the absolute best market in the West Midlands.”<\/p>\n

The long delay to the work has hit traders, with the city council cutting rent<\/a> by a quarter for more than 10 months to support them during the work.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The council said it was spending \u00a315,000 on events and activities in and around the indoor market to help attract more people during the work.<\/p>\n

And Bilston’s outdoor market relocated to the town’s high street last October to allow for work on the new facility to start.<\/p>\n

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

This had also resulted in a further \u00a32.5m being set aside and delay to the start of the work on the new market, the council added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Christian BarnettLocal Democracy Reporter, Wolverhampton Greig & Stephenson Architects A 12-metre beacon which marks the market as a…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":278099,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[64,135,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-278098","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-markets","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-markets","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115318174518191559","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}