Council bosses have rubber-stamped the relocation of Birmingham Wholesale Markets – ending a three-year saga over its future.
The markets are to move to a new, purpose-built site in Witton which will be completed next year.
The site will replace the current, 1970s building in Pershore Street in the city centre, the Labour-run council confirmed yesterday.
Deputy council leader Coun Ian Ward said an outline relocation package had been agreed with traders.
He said: “The new markets must be affordable for both the city council and the traders themselves.
“We have agreed in principle for relocation costs, the details of which will be negotiated, and that traders will be involved in the management of the new markets.”
Traders had supported the move to Witton as the best option available.
They initially pushed for the markets to be rebuilt in the city centre but the council ruled that out as unaffordable.
Opposition councillors were concerned the new facility would have only 90 units, against 270 units in the city centre.
But Coun Ward said the current site was vastly under-occupied and traders had been consulted over the numbers.
Stallholders were first given notice to quit the current site in the summer of 2010 and told to find a new location.
Liberal Democrat group leader Coun Paul Tilsley, who was council deputy leader at the time, said his administration had received “stones and arrows” from the public and media over the decision.
But he added: “We would have come to the same conclusion.”
But Coun Ward hit back, saying the relationship between the council and traders had broken down when Labour took over the authority in 2012.
“We have now repaired that situation,” he said.
There will also be a major ad campaign to boost Birmingham’s retail markets, next to the Bullring, to lesson the impact of their key suppliers moving to Witton.
