There is a month in which to decide whether to try and bring back a market to Swindon town centre.

The Towns Fund Board, set up by Swindon Borough Council with members from the business and voluntary sectors, is making detailed business cases to ensure a promised £19.5m promised by central government from the fund is actually spent here.

The only project in doubt is the plan for a new market in the town centre.
Under the council’s original submission, a new market was going to be set up in space in the Brunel centre, using £100,000 of Towns Fund money and £150,000 of money from Brunel owners FI Real Estate.

After three damaging lockdowns because of the coronavirus pandemic FI Real Estate pulled out of the scheme to concentrate on the recovery of the centre itself.

That leaves the Towns Fund Board with £100,000 and a decision – should it go ahead with trying to get a new market set up or ask government if it can use the money for a different project.

Borough council officer Dave Dewart told the board: “There are two realistic options to spend that £100,000. One is to support an outdoor market three days a week in the town centre which will be operated by inSwindon BID. 

"The other is to try and recycle the £100,000 and get authorisation to use it one something else- probably work to enhance the public realm in railway village in relation to other projects.”

Mr Dewart emphasised a decision had to be made by the next board meeting on November 19.

He said: “If we don’t make a decision then the money will have to be given up back to government. If we don’t go for a market then we have to demonstrate another use for it is in line with the benefits of the projects.”

Asked by chairman Richard  Newland whether he though being allowed to use the money on another scheme was likely, North Swindon MP Justin Tomlinson said: “If we want to say we want to spend it on something else, I feel it won’t be that receptive. But if we say we can’t do this, but we have this other project and it’s shovel ready, it might be a bit more receptive to the idea.”

Anita Bellinger, inSwindon director, told the committee a regular market was more than a possibility.

She said: “We have a market with about 40 stalls ready to go.”

Another member of the board, Pam Webb from Voluntary Action Swindon, said she would speak to the board’s community engagement panel about what it would like to see. 

She added: “It has a come up a lot in community engagement that people really would like a market in the town centre again.”

The tented market in the town centre closed in 2017.

A decision will be made by the board it its next meeting on November 19. It can be viewed online via a link from the meetings calendar at swindon.gov.uk