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Market gets fab pre-hall

Sue Carr
9/ 7/2004

ASHTON'S temporary market hall is well on the way to completion.

Foundation work on the Old Cross Street site is on target and the prefabricated buildings are due to start arriving at the end of the month. These will provide three inter-linked halls for traders who will soon be asked to sign the leases on their new stalls.

Old Cross Street and Swann Street will be closed for three weeks once the buildings arrive to protect the public from construction works and will later be turned into a one-way system to ease traffic flow.

The taxi rank - now in George Street outside Molly Malones - will stay there until September when the temporary market hall opens.

Councillor Kieran Quinn, cabinet deputy for economic services, said: "It's been a very emotional time for everyone and we're grateful to market traders and shops in the area for their positive co-operation. We never wanted this to happen but it really proves the Tameside spirit that everyone is pulling in the same direction to make sure we get the temporary market up and trading as soon as possible."

Permanent scaffolding is now set to replace the emergency scaffolding which is currently holding the walls of the old market hall in place.

Fire investigators say they have a good idea of where the blaze started but were forced to call off their search recently after the site was declared unsafe.

It is expected to take around eight weeks to erect the scaffolding and safeguard the structure before firefighters are allowed back in. Contractors can then start to remove the mountain of debris - around 2,000 tonnes - from inside.

Published 8 July 2004