“£1 Million market hall boost marks a good day for Mother town”

PLANS to bring Burslem Mar­ket Hall back into use have been handed a £1m fund­ing boost.

The sum from the Her­it­age at Risk Cap­ital Fund will help repairs already star­ted at the Vic­torian mar­ket hall.

The his­toric Grade II-lis­ted hall was built in 1879 but has been empty since 2003.

Stoke-on-Trent City Coun­cil is invest­ing around £4 mil­lion to make the build­ing safe and open it for mar­kets, events and com­munity use while its long-term future is decided.

It is a key part of the wider regen­er­a­tion of Burslem town centre and comes after the city coun­cil announced a ‘her­it­age emer­gency’ earlier this year.

The city is home to more than 275 lis­ted build­ings, 22 con­ser­va­tion areas, five sched­uled monu­ments and five registered his­toric parks.

The award of the cash for the mar­ket hall was wel­comed by Stoke-on-Trent North MP David Wil­li­ams.

He said: “Since I was elec­ted, I’ve been work­ing to bring our beau­ti­ful his­toric build­ings back into use.

“We’ve had a num­ber of really suc­cess­ful meet­ings with His­toric Eng­land, with many mem­bers of their team com­ing out of their offices in Lon­don and Birm­ing­ham to see what our towns have to offer.

“This is what that work looks like when it pays off. For more than 20 years, people in Burslem have walked past the mar­ket hall and watched it sit empty. Now the roof is being replaced, the repairs are going in, and there’s real money behind get­ting the doors open again.

“There’s still a lot to do, and I’ll keep mak­ing the case for the long-term invest­ment that build­ings like this need. But today is a good day for the Mother Town, and a sign of what Burslem can be when every­one pulls in the same dir­ec­tion.”

The £41m Her­it­age At Risk Cap­ital Fun is bank­rolled by the Depart­ment of Cul­ture, Media and Sport and delivered by His­toric Eng­land.

Nation­ally, 74 sites at the heart of com­munit­ies will receive fund­ing.

The mar­ket hall cash comes after a pre­vi­ous £1m grant from Her­it­age Eng­land was with­drawn.

A spokes­per­son for Stoke-on-Trent City Coun­cil said: “Since declar­ing a her­it­age emer­gency, we’ve been mak­ing the case for greater invest­ment in Stoke-on-Trent’s his­toric build­ings and the role they can play in driv­ing growth and attract­ing invest­ment.

“This award is a sig­ni­fic­ant vote of con­fid­ence in that vis­ion.”