Officers want Winsford Market's side door kept shut on safety grounds, despite a 1,316-name petition. Councillors take it up at 6pm on Monday 7 September.
Winsford Market’s side door should stay locked, council officers have told councillors, five months after 1,316 people signed a petition asking for it to be reopened.
The recommendation is in a report published for the Places Overview and Scrutiny Committee, which meets at 6pm on Monday 7 September in the 1st floor committee room at Ellesmere Port Library, Civic Way, CH65 0BG. There is a 15-minute public question time at the start.
The report asks the committee to endorse the recommendation “that, in the interests of protecting public safety, the side door at Winsford Market remains closed to public access” (full report, PDF).
What the petition asked for
The petition, titled Winsford Market Access, was formally received by Cheshire West and Chester Council on 3 April 2026 and published on its petitions page on 8 April. The April scrutiny report records 1,316 signatories at the time of writing.
That cleared the council’s own bar. Its petition scheme lets a petition go to a scrutiny committee at the lead petitioner’s request once it reaches 0.5% of the borough electorate, which the council puts at “circa 1300 persons”.
The petition text asked the council to:
- disclose the full risk assessment and evidence used to justify the closure
- review whether the closed routes were de facto public rights of way
- engage directly with traders and residents to co-produce a solution
- give due consideration to reinstating pedestrian access
How the door came to be closed
The September report sets out the sequence. The council bought Winsford Cross Shopping Centre in 2018 to halt the decline of the town centre’s retail. Residents were consulted on regeneration from September 2019 to January 2020, and on the detailed masterplan between May and July 2021. The planning application was approved on 5 April 2022.
Construction started in 2023 and finished in March 2025. The side entrance and pedestrian route from the shopping centre went with it. The report says the route was not a formal right of way, so no legal process was needed to close it.
Traders were told at a meeting on 22 February 2023 that after completion, access from the rear and side doors would be restricted to traders only. The report accepts the message did not land: it says further clarity was needed to prevent the misunderstanding that the closure was temporary.
Why the council says no
The door opens onto a service yard used by articulated lorries and delivery vans for Asda and B&M. The report says vehicle tracking shows HGVs swing immediately in front of the side door, that the yard narrowed when the new retail unit and garden centre were built, and that lorry numbers went up.
Officers cite Health and Safety Executive guidance that “pedestrians and vehicles should be kept apart wherever reasonably practical”. The council’s own health and safety manager is quoted in the report saying that keeping the door closed “significantly reduces the risk of pedestrians being struck by vehicles and is a proportionate and necessary control measure to manage this identified hazard”.
On the alternatives traders suggested, the report is blunt. No mitigation is judged feasible, because an uninterrupted pedestrian route cannot be fitted up to and around the door. The council also says it cannot restrict the lorries, because Asda and B&M need the yard for deliveries and waste collection and it is public highway.
The report adds a line that will not settle the argument. On the traders’ call for an independent risk assessment, it says the health and safety team has confirmed it would not be acceptable for the council to disregard the current assessment, and that “in the event of an accident the HSE would revert to the current risk assessment, regardless of any independent risk assessment”.
What the traders said
The petitioners’ case, set out in the April report, is that the routes were used continuously by the public from the 1970s, that traders were informed of the closures rather than consulted, and that they were initially described as temporary. They argue deliveries to the yard have fallen since redevelopment, so the risk is lower now than during the decades the route was open without a recorded serious incident.
Traders and residents carried out their own risk assessment in March, using HSE guidance and the council’s own template. Copies were circulated to committee members.
At the April meeting, Cllr Martin Beveridge attended as a visiting member and told the committee he felt there were flaws in the council’s process. Cllr Nathan Pardoe, cabinet member for inclusive economy, regeneration and digital transformation, and Siobhan Bird, head of construction and development, responded that reopening could not be accommodated because of the physical constraints of the space (April minutes).
What has actually changed since April
The committee made three asks in April. The report answers each:
- Signage. A large double-sided A-board now sits in the open space between Asda, the shopping centre entrance and the car park, with arrows to the market. A sign has been put on the inside of the closed door redirecting people to the main entrance.
- Engagement. The market service has written a bespoke communication plan for each of the council’s markets. The report concedes that “further clarity was needed to prevent the misunderstanding that the side door closure was temporary”.
- A fuller account. The September report is that account, and it lists six trader meetings held between July 2024 and June 2026.
Alongside it, the council says it is spending over £1m on the market itself: a new roof, electrical and lighting work, changes to the trading space and a community space. A mural celebrating the current traders and the market’s history is due to go up beside the shopping centre in autumn 2026, with the artist commissioned with trader input and residents invited to help paint it. The council has also secured money from the Combined Authority Mayoral Investment Fund 2026/2027 for public realm work in front of the market and the Dingle entrance.
One detail in the report’s own history does not stand up. It says a market has been held in Winsford “since 1280 when it received its first royal charter from King Richard I”. Richard I died in 1199.
What it means for you
- If you want to speak, public question time is the first 15 minutes of the meeting on Monday 7 September, at Ellesmere Port Library rather than in Winsford.
- If you shop at the market, nothing changes on the ground. The entrances next to Asda remain the only public way in, and the report is asking councillors to confirm that permanently.
- If you trade there, the £1m works, the mural and the public realm money are the council’s answer to the footfall argument, not a reopened door.
- If you signed the petition, the committee can still make further recommendations to the cabinet member. It is a scrutiny committee, so it advises rather than decides.
The market has run as a part-time market, opening Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays, since 1960. It is still a covered market rather than an indoor one: the report notes the structure remains partially open to the weather at the roof line.
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