NOT THE RIGHT TIME TO RE-OPEN NESTON MARKET YET

Neston Town council held a Meeting on Monday 11th May to discuss the feasibility of starting to re-open Neston Market with just the regular essential food stalls at first.

The safety of the public is the Council’s primary concern so various options for managing stalls within social distancing guidelines were considered, together with the need to maintain the current queuing space for Sainsbury’s store.

The market square is a public area, used to access the car park, Sainsbury’s supermarket and as a shortcut across the town, so it would be very difficult to be able to control the number of people on the square at any one time.

The Council understands that residents wish to have their market return as soon as possible, as do they, but staff and Councillors all expressed concerns over the safety of the public and traders if the Market was re-opened too soon.

For this reason it was decided that a further meeting should be held in July, where updated information will be considered, with a view to re-opening in late August/early September, once further announcements have been made by the Government. The Council are disappointed that this was the decision that was reached, but feel now is not the right time.

Council staff are in contact with the regular traders and know they are also looking forward to the re-opening of Neston’s Market as soon as it is safe for everyone.

Report from Councillor Pat Kynaston, Chair of Markets Working Group and Councillor Sion Jones, Chair of Resources Committee.