‘It’s how shopping used to be’: The packed Greater Manchester town centre bucking the trend of decline

It’s the shopping area with the third largest footfall in Greater Manchester after the Arndale and the Trafford Centre. Anyone visiting Bury on a Friday morning would probably agree with that, hearing the background hum of conversation and cries of traders harking their wares ringing out among labyrinth of stalls on the town’s famous outdoor market.

Shoppers were vying for spaces at the nearby Mill Gate and Rock shopping centre car parks, and coachloads of visitors from out of the borough were disembarking and flowing into the market area, eager for a bargain and maybe a cooked breakfast.

Earlier this year Chris Roberts, development director at Bruntwood who are involved in regeneration projects in town, hailed Bury as the ‘regional capital’ of North Greater Manchester, citing its strong attraction and strategic positioning.

Regeneration plans for the town include proposals to transform the Mill Gate Shopping Centre with new shops, leisure, residential and business opportunities. Alongside this, a new £20m Flexi Hall, which will have a multifunctional events space that can support market stalls, ‘pop-up’ trading, live performance and community events is set to be built.

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At the centre of Bury’s retail attraction is its outdoor market, which operates fully on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Around for more than 500 years, Bury Market is often described by townsfolk as ‘the pride of the the town’.

Attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors per year it proudly lives up to its ‘world famous’ label and description by Bury council as a ‘very large traditional market in a modern setting’.

It has been voted ‘market of the year’ in