Tredegar Indoor Market set to open its doors

Managing director Gareth Price hopes the venture can breathe new life into Tredegar town centre

An indoor market is returning to a south Wales town after the last one closed about 25 years ago.

Tredegar Indoor Market will operate in a former Woolworths store in the town centre.

Stall holders will sell items from shoes and baby clothes to vegetables when it opens for the first time on Friday afternoon.

The town's old outdoor market made way for an indoor market in the 1970s but that closed in the 1990s.

A crowd of people at the former outdoor market in 1926

Managing director Gareth Price hopes the venture can breathe new life into the town centre.

"You've got to go to retail parks or further down to Cardiff or Swansea to get things you need," he said.

His idea to open the business was prompted by a discussion with local people on Facebook about whether they wanted to see a market reopen.

Delicatessen counter in the indoor market circa 1970s

"By bringing local people in to run their stall, hopefully their family, their friends will all come and support it," he said.

"And it's the banter... people miss that from the old market."

Pam Edwards, who ran a cafe in the old indoor market, said she remembered a "brilliant atmosphere".

"Everybody was friendly. It was thriving," she said.

Pam Edwards used to run the cafe in the former indoor market