WITTON councillor Sam Naylor says he would like the council to think ‘outside the box’ in terms of the future of the Northwich Outdoor Market site.

Last week, Cheshire West and Chester Council announced that it had received the green light from its insurers to proceed with the demolition of the market, which was gutted by fire on January 3.

But following its demolition, the future of the site is less certain, with the council saying that it will form part of the Weaver Square masterplan, which is still in development.

And Cllr Naylor says that as a focal point in the town centre, he would like to see work begin sooner rather than later.

“Myself and other Northwich councillors have been putting pressure on to resolve this situation which has been ongoing since the fire in early January,” he said.

“The site is a gateway to the town which we’re trying to regenerate, and at the moment, it’s an absolute eyesore.

“The situation was with the insurance company as it was still being investigated, but thankfully the insurers came back and said it’s now fine to be demolished.

“I’m told that will be happening in the next few weeks - I’m hoping that means the next two or three weeks and not five or six.”

Northwich Guardian:

Fire gutted the market building on January 3

Cllr Naylor says he is calling for a fresh regeneration meeting looking at the rejuvenation of the town post-coronavirus.

“Demolishing the market is going to create a big open space, and you’ve also got the open space where part of Weaver Square has already been demolished and is standing vacant,” he continued.

“This is a new opportunity and I’m suggesting that the council looks at how we can best utilise the space until we get through Covid-19, which might be a long time.

“I’ve heard people say use it as car parking, but I don’t feel that’s thinking out of the box enough.

“I’d like to see it utilised by existing small businesses to take a bit of extra space.

“Take a lot of our cafés for example. The problem is that if they’re going to be losing half of their tables because of social distancing, how are they going to be financially viable?

“When this furlough scheme finishes, we could see mass unemployment with companies going to the wall, so my view is that we must do everything we can to ameliorate and stop it.”

One idea is to create a shelter over the area similar to that of Warrington’s Old Market Place at Golden Square, which is mainly used as an event space and surrounded by food outlets.

Northwich Guardian:

The covered area at Warrington’s Old Market Place

“One thing we don’t have much of in this country except over the past month is brilliant weather, so we’ve got to have some sort of canopy to keep the rain out,” Cllr Naylor added.

“That’s the sort of thing we should be looking at and that’s what I’ll be suggesting at the next regeneration meeting in the next few weeks.

“There’s a lot going on, with Northwich BID, Northwich Town Council and Cheshire West and Chester Council working to get some kind of plan sorted for the town centre.

“Most of the town centre is pedestrianised, but we’ve got to organise the flow of pedestrians to accommodate social distancing.

“We’re looking at ways of doing that and we’re working with all organisations to get the town up and running as quickly as we can.

“Some market traders have continued working throughout and the rest have been given the green light to return in a couple of weeks’ time.

“We’re working positively to accommodate that as well, so there’s a lot of things going on.”