Investigation: Is Tameside Council Spending £10.8M on a Market Redevelopment Backed by Just Five Public Comments?

TAMESIDE, UK – Tameside Council is pushing ahead with a major £10.8 million redevelopment of Ashton Market Square, a project it claims is driven by public demand. However, an investigation by the Tameside Independent into the council’s own official documents has raised serious questions about the true level of public support, revealing that the formal planning application for the multi-million-pound scheme received just five responses from residents.

The council has repeatedly justified the project, which will see the construction of a new market canopy and trader kiosks, as being “what the public wanted.” The BBC, reporting on the plans, noted that “the council emphasizes that the redevelopment is driven by public demand for a more appealing and functional market square.”

However, the council’s own planning file for the project (Ref: 23/00561/FUL) tells a different story. In response to the official, legally required publicity for the scheme, a total of only five third-party responses were submitted: four letters of objection and just one of support.

The council is likely to be basing its claims on an earlier, less formal “Public Realm Strategy” document, which summarised feedback from consultation events in 2022. While this report noted general public dissatisfaction with the “unattractive” and “characterless” state of the old market, it is notably vague on the number of people who actually participated.

This raises a critical question for taxpayers: is a decision to spend almost £11 million of public money being justified by the vague feedback of an unknown number of people, while ignoring the fact that only five residents engaged with the final, detailed plans?

To get to the bottom of this, the Tameside Independent has submitted a formal Freedom of Information (FOI) request to Tameside Council. We have demanded they release the final business case used to approve the £10.8 million expenditure and, crucially, the raw, anonymised data from the 2022 consultation, to reveal exactly how many people’s views this project is based on, without requesting any personal information.

The public has a right to know if their money is being spent wisely and whether the council’s claims of public demand are backed by real evidence or just a handful of comments. The investigation continues.