Progress on new outdoor market

Oldham’s new outdoor market is taking shape behind the Spindles shopping centre.

Foundations have been laid for the new retail space on George Square, which will become the new home for traders currently located next to the car park at Tommyfield Market. 

The £2m transformation will see the land between the police station and shopping centre turned into a new home for Oldham’s once legendary Saturday Market. Once completed, the site could double as an outdoor venue for cultural events.

The works – funded by a £1m government grants and £1m of council capital spend – are expected to before the end of the year. An exact date for traders to move to their new location is yet to be announced. 

The council had previously predicted the space would be ready by late 2025, but a series of delays has put the relocation several months behind schedule. 

The former outdoor market has been earmarked for demolition and development into a novel new sixth form. Elite boarding school Eton College are providing a £1m kickstarter fund to open a selective new school with Star Academies Trust, which will be geared at helping ‘talented but underprivileged’ pupils into top universities around the world. 

The move would follow indoor traders, who celebrated a successful launch at their new venue on Parliament Square on March 28. Hundreds of locals streamed through the doors of The Market on its opening day to visit the 45 traders who have moved from the Tommyfield Indoor Market. 

Once the outdoor market closes, it will mark the end of a 240-year-old tradition of holding markets in that location. Open markets were first recorded in 1788 on a plot of land owned by Thomas Whittaker near Albion Street, giving it the name ‘Tommy’s Field’.

While some have criticised the loss of this tradition, supporters of the scheme have noted that the new location closer to the footfall of the shopping centre could give the struggling market a new lease of life. 

The projects are part of a wider £430m regeneration of Oldham town centre. This includes a 15-year partnership with urban developers Muse to build 2,000 new homes on disused sites such as the former Civic Centre, demolished Magistrates Court, and Prince’s Gate car park in Oldham Mumps.