Plans to create a food court and performance space in Carlisle Market Hall are set to be given the go-ahead.
Cumberland Council, which owns the prominent Grade II-listed city centre building, wants to remove two stalls in the centre of the market to create the place.
The planning application said that the market currently had many vacant units, including the former Wilko store.
It said: “To help promote an increase in footfall and to test new uses within the market, it is proposed that the western two clusters of market stalls be removed to create a new open seating space.
“This would be a food and beverage focused proposal, a use which has successful precedents at Liverpool Southport market, Leeds Kirkgate market, Sheffield Cutlers Works, and many others.
“The removal of the clusters of market stalls creates a more open space in which the scale of the arched iron roof above can be more greatly appreciated.
“The perimeter of existing market stalls are well placed to serve the new central seating area. Trees down either side of the intervention and planters at the centre bring greenery to the interior.”
It added that the western end of the space could be cleared of loose furniture and set up with a stage to make a temporary performance space.
The application added: “Congregation within market spaces is also an ongoing and key part of Carlisle’s social and cultural heritage and forms a major part of the city’s shared identity and memories. This extends to the use of the market hall as a major concert venue.”
Currently, there are four islands of market stalls within the hall. As part of these proposals, the two central market stalls will be removed, dismantled and stored and the food court will be temporary.
However, Carlisle and District Civic Trust has objected to the plans.
It said it understood that stallholders had not been consulted and the application should be withdrawn until that had been carried out; arrangements should be made for displaced stallholders to be relocated without any cost to them and it was concerned about the long-term future of the building.
The two stallholders affected will be relocated, Cumberland Council said.
A report by council planning officers said: “The existing two market stalls which are to be removed are not original historic fabric and therefore their removal will have a neutral impact upon the historic significance of the building.”
Carlisle market has existed on its current site, in some form or another, since 1799.
The market has evolved from butcher’s market, extended to provide butter and egg market with fish stalls incorporated into former butcher’s shambles through to present building, completed in 1889, which was a rebuild of existing market on site.
In more recent years the site has continue to expand, taking in additional properties to the south of the Scotch Street entrance to house retail outlet Wilko.
The application added: “These proposals offer the opportunity to provide new, uninterrupted, views of the building’s historic structure as well as to rationalise existing services and to increase opportunities for congregation, footfall and provide renewed retail opportunities, for food and beverage outlets, to historic stalls to perimeter of the hall.
“These interventions would help to bring people back into the market, would promote a more contemporary use within it, and would act as a test bed for a wider regeneration of the building.
“The removal of the clusters of market stalls creates a more open space in which the scale of the arched iron roof above can be more greatly appreciated.”
Members of Cumberland Council’s planning committee will meet on Wednesday February 19 to discuss the plans. Councillors have been recommended to approve them.
