Town market place to get £5.8m landscaped revamp

An artist's impression of the new look Great Yarmouth Market Place with paving, trees and lighting.

A £5.8m landscaping project will be a "real refresh" and complete the regeneration of a town centre, according to a council.

The money will fund new paving, lighting, seating and trees around the new £5.2m market building in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, which opened in 2023.

The money has come from government grants, including the Future High Streets and Town Deal, for which the authority had to bid through a competitive process.

Work is expected to start in early June and be completed by March 2025.

Great Yarmouth Borough Council chief executive Sheila Oxtoby said the work would complete the vision the authority set out more than five years ago.

"We're going to see a newly revised market place with new landscaping, new planting, a new lighting scheme, new seating," she said.

"It's going to be a real refresh and revitalisation of the market place."

"Curly" Jones and his partner Claudette Eccles think the market will become more popular when the regeneration is complete

The council has given assurances that summer shopping disruption would be minimised and said delaying the work until the winter could increase costs.

Shoppers in Great Yarmouth broadly welcomed the improvements, but some had reservations about whether it would bring regeneration.

One, who did not wish to be named, had been an employee at H Samuel's jewellery shop, which closed it's branch in the town three years ago.

She said: "I think they wasted too much money on it [the market].

"It looks nice, but all they're going to do is make it look nicer, and for what?

"I just don't think it's a good idea and I don't think we should be wasting taxpayers money."

"Curly" Jones, 60, from Milton Keynes, said: "I think it's good. It needs to be tidy, and feel nice and clean."

Tina Goodman, from Ormesby and her daughter Mandy Goodman, said the project was costing a lot of money but should give people a reason to visit the town

Tina Goodman, 78, from Ormesby, "Seems like an awful lot of money. But it needs sprucing up a bit, smartening up."

Her daughter Mandy, 55, added: "You need the shops to get the footfall. If they reduced the rates, that would help."

Caroline Read, 63, from Leicester, said she had visited the town's market since her childhood.

"To be honest, I prefer the old market," she said.

"But they've got to do something and you can't go backwards.

"It's a lot of money, but you have to gamble in life to do something."

Caroline Read and her partner Ian Ashton, from Leicester, said while they preferred the old market, they accepted modernisation was needed