Gloucester Greyfriars Quarter market and food hall redevelopment, Digi Mart USA News (Gloucester, England): A new indoor market and food hall for Gloucester is expected to open in the spring as the major redevelopment project for Eastgate Shopping Centre has reached a key milestone.
The ambitious £13.8 million Greyfriars Quarter project includes relocating the indoor market to Bell Walk while creating a new food hall. The plans will also turn the current market into a flexible 450-seat performance and cultural venue for live music, theatre, dance, cinema and community events.
Work will also be done to restore and safeguard the 13th-century Greyfriars Monastery ruins, Greyfriars House and Monument, and Addison’s Folly. Councillors were given an update on the scheme this week and recommended that a further £3 million be drawn down for the project.
This decision follows the £4 million released earlier this year to start the first phase of the project. Head of place Andy Hearne told the overview and scrutiny committee on November 2 that the second tranche of funding will be used for the next stage of the redevelopment.
Hearne said the council has “moved at pace” over the last year and that the new market is expected to open in spring next year. “We are now in a position where we are effectively ready to go out to procurement for the principal contractor to start doing key considerable works to the new marketplace,” he said.
“Effectively, that money brings forward the new market space in itself, which is still looking to open in spring 2027,” he said. “It is a proportion of retrofitting and refurbishing, light touch on Addison’s Folly, and it also looks at some of the public realm in the bowls area and the pavilion.
“It’s a key milestone. It doesn’t consider the cultural space at the minute because that will be coming forward in another report.
That will be the last draw down.”
Councillor Terry Pullen (L, Moreland) said he hoped existing traders would generally be on board with the plans. He also asked how many existing traders at Eastgate Market are likely to move into the new market and whether there was interest from new traders.
Hearne said the response has generally been very positive, and that the council has held a number of meetings with market traders and is individually negotiating tenancies for the new space. “So far all of those conversations are going in the right direction,” he said.
He said he would need to check how many traders would move across, and explained that the council is working with leasing agents who are “out there speaking to people” to sign up new traders. “We’ve also got the food market, so you’ve got the actual market itself and then the food market.
We are looking at pushing on and attracting for that element of it as well,” he added.
Councillors voted to recommend that the managing director use urgent decision-making powers to commit and allocate £3,050,000 to the project. The decision will be made on November 11 at the earliest.
