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Is the future of Arndale Market at risk?
On Monday, traders at Arndale Market — a beloved collection of independent food stalls, jewellery stands, hairdressers, greengrocers and fishmongers on the edge of Arndale shopping centre — received an email. It came from Manchester City Council, who lease the market space from the main shopping centre, manage it, and lease the stalls to traders.
Many of the businesses on the market, which opened on the western edge of the shopping centre in 2006, have been operating there for decades. The fishmongers and greengrocers are among the last of their kind in the city centre (following the closures of the market stalls on Church Street in 2024). Some, like Asia Crafts, were part of the old market that was destroyed by the IRA bomb in 1996, making them some of Manchester’s oldest independently owned businesses. Many are family owned.
Over the last few decades, these places have operated under long-term leases from the council, which makes sense given the long-term investments that have been made into them. But the email the traders got on Monday said that arrangement had come to an end. “The current five year lease ends on Sunday 6 September 2026,” the email, sent by the market’s council-employed manager Mark Norris, said.
Instead of renewing the leases, as has previously been the case, Norris told traders there would be a new trading agreement coming into effect. “This trading contract may be a license or a lease,” he told them. “Licenses can be a rolling weekly license, a rolling monthly license, or a fixed period.” The suggestion of rolling licenses sent alarm bells ringing.
Speaking to traders over the last few days, I’ve been told this would be catastrophic for their businesses, which need long-term stability to function. “Week by week, you can’t have a business,” says Colette Whittaker, who owns Pancho’s Burritos with her husband Enrique Martinez Hernandez. “It’s our lives,” says Enrique. “Now we’re getting a couple of months? After 16 years?” The traders expect a meeting with the council by June, by which point a decision will have been made on the trading agreement. “They say June, July, August,” Enrique says. “Three months to get rid of your life.”
Mary Dade, who with her husband Mark owns MicroBar — a tiny pub complete with a ‘90s jukebox — tells me they will close if rolling licenses are put in place: “as you would appreciate, this is not an option for our business.”
Raza, who owns the greengrocer Strawberry Garden in February, is visibly worried about the situation when I bring it up with him, glancing around the cardboard boxes of plantains and tomatillos. He only took on the lease in February, having worked previously in security and as a prison guard, and estimates he spent some £70,000 taking on the business. “If this place goes in September…” he says, just shaking his head.
When I called Norris, the manager who sent the email, to raise some of the concerns I’d heard from businesses, he told me to call the council’s press office. When I asked him if he at least wanted to hear what the traders had told me, he said “whatever it is they’re saying, speak to the press office, thank you”, and then hung up. I also left a message with Neil Fairlamb, the council’s strategic director for neighbourhoods, which presides over the markets team. He didn’t return the call.
This afternoon, the council did not deny plans to offer traders short-term licenses, but said: "The Council values the Arndale Market and its independent traders. We are currently exploring options to secure its long-term sustainable future. We understand that this is causing concerns among traders. We will be in touch with them soon about extension arrangements.”
Hello! Jack D here. Thanks so much for reading my piece on the future of Arndale Market. We have included the key details for free, because we know how much the market means to so many people. But by becoming a paying subscriber, you allow us to report properly on the things that matter most to Mancunians. To read the rest of the story, you can sign up to become a Miller here.
‘The council have been pretty shoddy’
Earlier today, we put a video on our Instagram outlining the details of the email sent to the traders, and the precarious position they feel short-term licenses would leave them in. “Oh my god” one person commented, “this is the hill I’m willing to die on”. “If panchos closes we riot,” commented another. The market has become a mainstay for the city centre worker looking for lunch, offering a range of cheaper options. Its two fishmongers, Direct Fisheries and Whales, are the last two remaining fishmongers in the city centre (Chinatown alleyway fishmonger notwithstanding).
So why is the council doing this? Some traders shared their theories with us: Involving a fire, a fall out, and a future renovation.
“Everything is rumour, they don’t communicate” one long-term trader who asked not to be named tells me. But the prevailing narrative is that there is a renovation in the works. The market hasn’t had a meaningful update since it opened; there are open holes in the ceiling, and sometimes buckets are left out to catch leaks. Traders tell me the move to shorter-term leases would allow the council to give them shorter notice periods to vacate, making it easier to bring in contractors. “They’re doing it all to suit them,” Colette, from Pancho’s, says.
Over the last few years, some traders say they have noticed the council becoming less hospitable towards them. For example, it used to regularly update the market’s Facebook page, advertising new traders as well as vacancies, but hasn’t done so since 2023. When Enrique and Colette contacted management to tell them that Pancho’s had been nominated by the Manchester Food and Drink Festival for takeaway of the year, they didn’t reply.
It was also in 2023 that the relationship between the council and the Arndale Centre apparently began to sour, after a fire started in a stall on the market’s south side — better known for its nail bars, clothes shops, and hair salons, with a smattering of food stalls. The council had been pushing for new tenants on that side of the market, which wasn’t attracting the same level of footfall. It was one such newcomer — a Hong Kong/Thai fusion stall aptly called Hong Thai — that set on fire, shutting the market for weeks.
Since then, the council has spent half a million pounds improving the market’s fire safety system “which illustrates our commitment to the market,” a spokesperson says. Traders, however, ask why it required a fire for those improvements to be made. We hear there were terse words between top brass at the Arndale and the council, though the Arndale denies this: “We have a long-standing positive relationship with Manchester City Council and we work closely with their team who run Arndale Market and the car park,” the shopping centre’s spokesperson said.
But back to the rumour amongst traders that the council wants to bring the market up to date, and wants to redefine the trading conditions so it's easier to get tenants to vacate to make way for the work. When we asked the council if it plans to renovate the market, it said it “required considerable further investment to improve and futureproof its infrastructure”, but stopped short of calling it a renovation. “We are currently carrying out an options appraisal to establish the best way forwards”.
But for traders that have been on the market and — despite chain food vendors opening in the city, and in the Arndale itself every few months — managed to make it work, the offer of short-term licenses feels like a slap in the face. “The council have been pretty shoddy,” one long-term tenant says. They tell me they were asked by the council to make significant changes to their business in order to be granted their current lease, “and now at the 11th hour there isn’t going to be a lease.”
We asked the council if fixed-term leases, rather than short-term licenses, could still be an option for these businesses — businesses that have put decades of work into cultivating customers, and keeping one of the city’s oldest markets afloat — but they didn’t reply to that question. The council did, however, say traders will hear from them about new arrangements “as soon as they are finalised”, which we understand will be before June, and that this “should give them more confidence going forwards and help allay their immediate concerns.”
Arndale Market is unique. A publicly operated indoor market — host to a plethora of small independent businesses — in a city centre increasingly reliant on large chains. The council, which regularly reminds us of its commitment to locally owned independent businesses, ought to want to create the conditions where the traders on Arndale Market can thrive, not conditions that make their businesses untenable.
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