COUNCILLORS will decide in the next week whether to give permission for a market to be set up in a former Marks and Spencer.

However, even if the licence is granted, it will still face the hurdle of the retail giant being in advanced talks with someone else for the former store in Birkenhead’s Pyramids Shopping Centre.

The future of Birkenhead’s Marks and Spencer has been up for debate recently after a market trader Alan Featherstone put forward plans and applied for a licence for a market in the space. Traders are currently looking to go their own way following a controversial decision by Wirral Council to turn a former Argos unit on Princes Pavements into the market’s new location by 2026.

Earlier this year, Marks and Spencer said it was happy to let a new Birkenhead Market be run from the premises subject to terms and conditions being agreed. However in July, Marks and Spencer said it was no longer able to move forward with any sub-lease related to a market which was later confirmed to the LDRS.

Despite this setback, Mr Featherstone hasn’t withdrawn his plans calling on the council to support them. He was represented by his son Will at a licensing panel hearing on October 11 concerning whether councillors had to consider what impact any new market could have on the one they run in the town centre.

Will Featherstone was questioned over the plans for a new market including its viability, impact on the existing Birkenhead Market and any future market run by the council, as well as its business plan. In his answers, Mr Featherstone said he said it was a bit of a “chicken and egg situation” where he argued he wasn’t able to move any business plans forward without a licence but couldn’t get a licence without a business plan.

He made reference to the need for 70% occupancy in a market run from the Marks and Spencers, plans for an astroturf facility built upstairs, the security, office, and managerial staff he would employ to run it, as well as positive comments market traders had made. However he said it was very much a concept with no costs provided or signed agreements in place.

However he said the plan would be for a non-profit community market with any money made going back into it. He argued that competition was good and having two markets in the town he argued would be different from each other would be good for jobs and footfall.

In his final address, he said: “I wouldn’t be here hitting my head against the wall if I didn’t think it is not going to work. Why would I waste my time,” adding: “The idea of Birkenhead Market, it’s not what it used to be so let’s do something to change it.”

He was supported by one member of the public in the audience as well as Birkenhead’s three Green councillors Pat Cleary, Amanda Onwuemene, and Ewan Tomeny. They argued that granting the licence wouldn’t have a wider impact and an opportunity to “transform the way the council would be perceived.”

Cllr Amanda Onwuemene pointed to the market previously having 330 businesses whereas it now has 40, adding: “As a landlord, I do not really think the council can hold itself up as a good at running viable markets. We pay quite an awful lot of money and it’s not thriving. It’s not thriving at all.”

However, the council’s director of regeneration Marcus Shaw pointed to the lack of a business plan and the opposition of Marks and Spencer to the lease as reasons not to grant a licence. He argued granting a market licence could jeopardise the local authority’s regeneration plans as well as future plans to relocate Birkenhead Market into Argos if there were two markets in the town.

He said: “We do not have the population and economy to support and sustain growth of that scale,” adding: “It wouldn’t work in the spirit of what we are trying to achieve.” He pointed to the council’s plans to bring more leisure, retail and office space into the town centre and asked “that the application is thrown out and rejected.”

Councillors will issue their decision within seven days.