What is happening with Brighouse market: Work to start soon so that Calderdale town should have a new market 'by this time next year'

Contracts for the construction of the new market are near completion and work should start on the £3m project later this summer, councillors heard.

It is one of the projects being realised in the heart of town as part of Brighouse’s £19.1m Town Deal investment.

Ward councillor Howard Blagbrough (Con, Brighouse), who is also co-chair of Brighouse Town Deal Board, wanted to reassure concerned townspeople it was going ahead.

He had seen the speed at which the former Wilko store in town had been demolished – within six months from announcement – while work on the market Ship Street site, the new replacing the old, was less evident.

“I want to reassure members of the public in Brighouse we are ploughing ahead and Brighouse will have a new market, hopefully this time next year.

“Let’s just hope it progresses a little bit quicker than it has done,” he said at a Calderdale Council questions-to-cabinet-members session.

Cabinet member for Regeneration and Transport, Coun Sarah Courtney (Lab, Calder) said she was happy and able to put on public record that things were about to get underway.

“The contract for construction of the new market is die to be completed very shortly with work actually starting later in the summer,” she said.

Preparations were also under way for a temporary market to be installed on Daisy Street car park – just across Anchor Bridge from the market’s current home – while the new market is being built.

Coun Courtney said: “The public realm works I talked about are going through sign-off as well, so things are happening.”

She said there were processes and procedures to follow in a project like this, with perhaps greater procurement pathways to go through than private developers like at the Wilko site, and these took up a lot of time.

The new market will have around 20 fixed stalls, a flexible central space that can be used for events or additional pop-up stalls, spaces to sit, rest and meet, with views over the canal, new toilets for traders plus storage.

There is an aspiration to open more days of the week, Brighouse Town Deal Board has previously said.