Market trader claims revamp is hurting business

Grainger Market is undergoing a £9m revamp

Delays to a major revamp of a historic market will have a "detrimental" impact, a trader has said.

Newcastle City Council confirmed last week improvement works on the city centre's Grainger Market would now be finished early next year instead of this summer, as originally hoped.

Trader Leslie Armstrong said she was worried about a further drop in turnover and claimed she was not properly informed about some of the plans.

The Labour-run local authority said the works were a once-in-a-generation transformation and traders had been engaged with prior to and throughout the duration of the works.

The £9m overhaul of the Grade I listed building began last September. It includes new flooring, toilets, doors, seating and signage.

The market arcade is also being redesigned to stage gigs, plays, fashion shows and other cultural events, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

The council had blamed the "complex" nature of working inside the building for the delay and said "significant" progress had been made.

'Lack of communication'

Ms Armstrong, who has been trading at the market for about 10 years, said the delay was "having a huge, detrimental effect on traders".

The business owner, who runs the Scented Melts shop, said her turnover had decreased by between 25 and 30% since March.

She claimed she was originally told hoarding would go only a third of the way across of the arcade, but instead it went halfway, without her being consulted further.

"This actually blocked one of the main alleys where people cut through the market, which runs down the side of my shop," she said.

"We've seen a huge decrease in footfall because of that. With the delay, that's going to last even longer."

The council said the footfall in the market during the works had been recorded at 2.2% down on the previous year, which "reflects the general downturn of footfall in city centres nationally for the same period".

It added traders had been consulted on the hoarding, and lengthening it was considered preferable to the traders as it would "substantially reduce" the time it needed to be in place.

Leslie Armstrong says her business has been affected by the works

Ms Armstrong added some alleys had had plastering work done about a year ago, but traders were told there was no budget for painting.

"We have got all this open plastering on the walls, which makes the place look very run down," she said.

"So we're going to end up with this fabulous arcade for entertainment space and the rest of the market looking shabby."

She said it was "disconcerting" she had found out certain details about the renovation plans, such as new paving and planters, from the media, rather than the council itself.

The council said painting would require Listed Building Consent and was never included in the initial plans.

A spokesperson for Newcastle City Council said: "We need to make sure the funding is used where it has the biggest impact.

"All detail, including the planned end date of the works has been shared with them [market traders] as a priority, ahead of the media."

The authority added the works would secure the market's future and protect its heritage.

Additional reporting by the Local Democracy Reporting Service.