Birmingham City Council has launched a consultation with traders on its Pershore Street wholesale market to the dismay of traders who say it is reneging on previous agreements about issues as basic as funding.
A spokesman for the city centre market said the consultation is “designed to ensure the interests of traders, customers and suppliers are fully considered as relocation plans are further developed”.
But Mark Tate, head of the market’s tenants association, complained the survey does not provide an option for the market to remain at its existing site and be refurbished or for the council to build a new market, which had previously been offered.
The three options offered are for relocation as a whole to an existing site in the city to be refurbished by a private developer; for tenants to relocate as individual businesses; or for tenants to relocate together as three separate markets for horticulture, meat and fish.
Tate said: “We are working with our local MP Shabana Mahmood and we would like her come to a consultation with us and the leader of the council Mike Whitby and deputy leader Paul Tilsley. We understood there would be funding for a move but now we understand there is not. We have a legal firm looking into the consultation document and we have written a closed letter to the council leaders. If we do not have a response by 14 October, we will send it as an open letter to the press. We are being hung out to dry by the council, which does not care about the 1,100 people on site.”
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