Upper Grounds Pub.

[Jimbo]

All the top chefs in the city seem to think that moving the markets is a bad idea, and would impact on the thriving food scene in the city. Why create setbacks and problems? Birmingham's food offering has done wonders for raising the profile of the city. More than any of the expensive and frankly embarrassing advertising in London, for example. You don't get the New York Times bigging up a city because it's added a new budget hotel, some offices and shops to its portfolio. Would London demolish Smithfield market or Spitalfields? No, they're part of the city's culture. Our wholesale markets are a part of our city culture, and nobody has yet come up with a viable plan for relocation.

The BMAG is great, but a city of this size should have more to offer. Creating a museum quarter wouldn't be 'shoehorning', it would be using an existing building. The reason it hasn't got more attention is because, as a public facility, a museum would fall under the council's remit. But the council hasn't got the vision to improve Birmingham's museum / gallery offering. It wants offices. It wants to commission contractors to build offices we don't need. Why?

Good point about Great Charles Street. Let's fix that area and put some offices there if we need them.

[PeterWithesShin]

From a personal point of view i'd be against the markets leaving the city center. Once or twice a month when i'm town on a Saturday i'll pop down to them for a mooch and a few bits and pieces as they are so close and easy to get to. If they were moved outside the center I doubt i'd bother.

Obviously my few quid here and there makes no difference but I wonder how many are and would be like me?

Which markets are you referring to, though?

This is the wholesale market. Not the market down by the bull ring at the moment.

Ah that will teach me to read everything properly. For some reason I thought it was both wholesale and retail. Carry on and ignore the daft bugger.

[Chris Smith]

The council doesn't have the cash to build new museums. Look what happened with the Science Museum moving to the Thinktank, what was a free facility now costs £39 for a family of four.

[Jimbo]

Incidentally, I'm reading The Belly Of Paris by Emile Zola at the moment. It's set in Les Halles, the grand Victorian markets of Paris. Les Halles were demolished in the late 1960s to make way for a soulless subterranean concrete shopping centre. Remind you of anything? Les Halles was replaced with an architectural disaster, and now this area is being redeveloped yet again. Who gains from all this demolishing and 'regeneration' but contractors and councillors? Now, Les Halles is a far cry from Birmingham's markets, but we never learn any lessons do we?

[Jimbo]

The council doesn't have the cash to build new museums. Look what happened with the Science Museum moving to the Thinktank, what was a free facility now costs £39 for a family of four.

An excellent example. It now costs more money to see fewer exhibits, and yet we had a perfectly good science museum in the first place. And you're right, the council doesn't have the cash to build new museums, so let's use an existing building to house some of the fine exhibits that are currently stashed away at a warehouse in Nechells.

[pauliewalnuts]

The council doesn't have the cash to build new museums. Look what happened with the Science Museum moving to the Thinktank, what was a free facility now costs £39 for a family of four.

An excellent example. It now costs more money to see fewer exhibits, and yet we had a perfectly good science museum in the first place. And you're right, the council doesn't have the cash to build new museums, so let's use an existing building to house some of the fine exhibits that are currently stashed away at a warehouse in Nechells.

And in all that, you're assuming that that existing building should be the Central Library, and that it is economically or structurally feasible to turn it into a museum? That's hardly a zero cost plan, is it?

What about the rest of that horrible area - Fletcher's walk, the conservatoire, the Copthorne? It is a gigantic visual blight on the city centre, and is a massive pinch point between the two halves of the city.

re the Paris markets - it made way for a soulless grey building - you mean like the one that currently houses the Wholesale Markets and the other one that houses the library here?

I entirely understand the argument about not knocking down all our heritage. I would hate to make that mistake again. The thing is, the central library doesn't actually have any heritage. The need to conserve our history doesn't mean you don't knock down anything.

We need to look at preserving / rejuvenating the buildings we have which do have heritage - see the plans for the Grand Hotel, for example. That's a fantastic looking plan, bringing a grand old building back from dead, and is economically viable.

I also can't believe this bit:

Who gains from all this demolishing and 'regeneration' but contractors and councillors?

Surely you don't really believe this? If you do, you must have been gutted to see the old Bull Ring go.

[dave.woodhall]

I'm always amused when well-meaning amateurs think their ideas are better than those of people whose job it is to come up with such things. Turning the wholesale market into a tourist destination, for example. It's hardly La Boqueria; the clue's in the name. If you want to walk round there at 4am watching crates of lettuce being fork-lifted into artics go ahead, but you'll be on your own.

[Jimbo]

I'm always amused when well-meaning amateurs think their ideas are better than those of people whose job it is to come up with such things. Turning the wholesale market into a tourist destination, for example. It's hardly La Boqueria; the clue's in the name. If you want to walk round there at 4am watching crates of lettuce being fork-lifted into artics go ahead, but you'll be on your own.

Perhaps we should be welcoming the ideas of 'well-meaning amateurs', because far too many of the people whose job it has been to build and rebuild this city have got it so badly wrong? I'm sure I don't need to remind you of all the examples, but: the demolition of the Victorian library/Mason College, the disastrous ring road and the 1960s bullring. etc.

This market trader - one of your well-meaning amateurs - had an idea for regenerating the wholesale market area, and while he's no town planner, parts of his plan aren't as far-fetched as they may sound.

http://www.birminghammail.net/news/top-stories/2011/11/30/life-long-trader-s-vision-of-birmingham-wholesale-markets-revealed-97319-29866054/
 
It isn't beyond the realm of possibility to build a food culture around markets and wholesale markets, with stalls and small cafes, restaurants, etc. These things may require a bit of imagination and vision, but... nah, let's have a Travelodge and some shops and offices instead.


 

[pauliewalnuts]

It isn't beyond the realm of possibility to build a food culture around markets and wholesale markets, with stalls and small cafes, restaurants, etc. These things may require a bit of imagination and vision, but... nah, let's have a Travelodge and some shops and offices instead.

You make the wholesale markets sound like some great undiscovered architectural gem that we're at risk of losing, rather than this:



To be perfectly honest, hotels, shops and offices would be an improvement. There's no reason for the markets to occupy such a crucial, central site.

[Jimbo]

Paulie, I'm talking about the demolition of buildings that may still have some use/worth, and the subsequent regeneration of those sites.

I haven't claimed that transforming the existing library into a museum / art space would be a zero cost plan. But I do wonder whether the council have fully explored the viability of such a plan, as well as all the alternatives. I'm concerned about another soulless building replacing the already soulless central library. Some would argue that the central library is a part of our recent heritage, and is a building of architectural worth. I'm not necessarily one of those people, but I'd hate to see a public building with potential get bulldozed for a bunch of office blocks that the city doesn't really need. If tomorrow they announced they were going to build a brand new museum on the site, I'd have no absolutely objection. 

Of course, the old bullring had to go, and what has replaced it has been an improvement.

I'm with you on the Grand Hotel plan, it's just what was needed.

Re: the above post - again, where are they going to relocate the market to?

[dave.woodhall]

Perhaps we should be welcoming the ideas of 'well-meaning amateurs', because far too many of the people whose job it has been to build and rebuild this city have got it so badly wrong? I'm sure I don't need to remind you of all the examples, but: the demolition of the Victorian library/Mason College, the disastrous ring road and the 1960s bullring. etc.

This market trader - one of your well-meaning amateurs - had an idea for regenerating the wholesale market area, and while he's no town planner, parts of his plan aren't as far-fetched as they may sound.

http://www.birminghammail.net/news/top-stories/2011/11/30/life-long-trader-s-vision-of-birmingham-wholesale-markets-revealed-97319-29866054/
 
It isn't beyond the realm of possibility to build a food culture around markets and wholesale markets, with stalls and small cafes, restaurants, etc. These things may require a bit of imagination and vision, but... nah, let's have a Travelodge and some shops and offices instead.
 

Those things were seen as the right thing to do at the time. It's easy in hindsight to say they were wrong, but nobody knows what would have happened had nothing been changed. It's like saying tower blocks were a bad idea; they were in the way they were built, but the housing stock they replaced was much, much worse for all the idealistic, rose-tinted look at the past we now have.

A market trader whose plan seems to revolve around spending a lot of someone else's money on the market where he works isn't exactly my idea of an impartial observer. 

[pauliewalnuts]

Re: the above post - again, where are they going to relocate the market to?

They haven't said yet. They looked into Witton, but it became too expensive.

If they said they were relocating to somewhere daft, like the NEC or something, I'd be with you on it, it is the refusal to believe it can't be elsewhere that I don't agree with.

There surely can't be any objections on an architectural level to it going, can there? It and the car park next door are truly horrible buildings.

If you look nearby at what is happening to Digbeth Cold Storage, that's a good example of regeneration respecting and revitalising an old building. So is the custard factory. The difference is that those are buildings with real merit, that's the difference.

You also refer to loads of office blocks the city doesn't need - if the city didn't need them, developers wouldn't be building them.

There is a shortage of grade A office space in the city. That's why Snow Hill is being built now, and that's why office space will be built here, too. I think Paradise Circus is being developed by Argent - the same people who did Brindleyplace, which is often cited as a model city centre regeneration.

If it is anywhere near as good as Brindleyplace, it''ll be fantastic. They're planning to open up lines of sight from Chamberlain Square right through to Centenary Square, I reckon it'll make a gigantic difference, and improvement to, the city centre.

[Jimbo]

You make the wholesale markets sound like some great undiscovered architectural gem that we're at risk of losing...

Come now, Paulie, you're making stuff up again. I'm talking about the importance of having the wholesale market in a central location. It works. It's good for the retail markets and local restaurants. Move it half a mile across the city, to a new purpose-built site? That's fine. But that's not what they're planning to do, is it?

As I said before, there's plenty of prime space for offices in the city if we really need them. My opinion is that Chamberlain Square / Paradise Circus should be for civic and public buildings that everyone can use and enjoy, and which attract people to the area. 

[pauliewalnuts]

You make the wholesale markets sound like some great undiscovered architectural gem that we're at risk of losing...

Come now, Paulie, you're making stuff up again. I'm talking about the importance of having the wholesale market in a central location. It works. It's good for the retail markets and local restaurants. Move it half a mile across the city, to a new purpose-built site? That's fine. But that's not what they're planning to do, is it?

But you're talking about creating a food culture with cafes etc etc around the wholesale market. Do you honestly think anyone is going to want to go there and sit around that 70s monstrosity as lorries and vans come and go?

It doesn't need to be in the city centre, it just needs to be near to it. To listen to your argument, it's as if that's the only place it can be.

[pauliewalnuts]

Incidentally, I just read that, prior to the move to Witton breaking down, they polled traders at the markets, and of 68 asked, 55 were in support of the move.