You know things are bad when Birmingham City Council’s infamous myth-busting team springs into action.
As soon as the politicians get it badly wrong and dreadful publicity arises as a result, some poor sap in the press office is ordered to compile a rebuttal document and distribute it to the local media.
The latest example of the genre – the wholesale markets myth-busting sheet – is an absolute classic of its kind, to the extent that it even introduces new myths into the mythical argument and as a result complicates what is actually a pretty simple set of circumstances.
Iron Angle is happy to offer, free of charge, a wholesale markets fact sheet which will, hopefully, sort out any misunderstandings that may have arisen over this issue:
* The wholesale markets will be closing, on the existing Digbeth site. This is partly because, as so often happens in Birmingham, the city council has failed over many years to maintain and modernise the market buildings, which now no longer meet European standards.
* It has been council policy to move the markets to a more easily accessible location away from the city centre closer to the motorway network for many years. The best opportunity, a move to Witton, fell apart recently largely as a result of the plummeting property market, which drastically reduced the redevelopment value of the Digbeth site, but also because of the collapse of Advantage West Midlands which had intended to bankroll the scheme.
* The collapse of the Witton project left the council facing a huge bill for consultants who worked on the scheme, a figure of £800,000 has been mentioned. This may have to be reclaimed from the traders, pushing up the wholesale market losses even further and placing a question mark over the future of the markets without some form of council subsidy.
* Even in a depressed development market, the commercial possibilities for regenerating the wholesale markets site are potentially huge and could net the council upwards of £30 million. Some of this money could be used to create the public-private partnership that the council says it wants to see running the markets on a new site.
* If the adjoining retail markets site in Digbeth also became available for redevelopment, a huge tranche of land would open up at the rear of the Bullring, allowing for the biggest extension of the city centre in years. This is a possibility considered so sensitive that it has immediately been recognised by the council as a myth that needs to be shot down......for the time being, at least.
The problem with all of this is that, in its panic to claim that there is no closure plan, the council merely exposes the poverty of its argument and demonstrates that there is no certainty at all over the future of the markets.
The myth-busting sheet begins with a clear statement: “The city council is seeking a private sector organisation to locate and develop a new home for the wholesale markets.”
This much is true. But the next myth apparently busted is not so straightforward: “The council has always stated that 2013 is a realistic timeframe to complete a search for a new wholesale markets site. If, for whatever reason, this is not achieved, traders will not be forced to shut up shop. A deadline does not exist.”
So, the traders have been told two years is long enough to find another site, but this is by no means a deadline.
