MULTI-MILLION pound plans to regenerate Newton Abbot’s Market Hall have been officially submitted to Teignbridge Council. 

The bid to transform and modernise the ageing hall in the town centre has been on the cards for more than four years.

The submission marks a major step forward in the project which is aimed at overhauling the existing building, improving the overall area and demolishing extensions and additions built in the 1970s. 

Costs for the redevelopment work were secured by a successful bid through the previous Government’s Future High Street Fund.

If planning approval is given, the work will start later this year, and the newly revamped market will reopen in Spring 2026. 

The detailed proposals are to ‘refurbish and reconfigure’ the Grade II listed Market Hall building.

Teignbridge Council bought the shopping centre with the aim of enabling investment in improvements for the long term benefit of the town centre. 

The Market Hall project forms part of the next phase of the wider masterplan vision for the regeneration of Newton Abbot town centre.

The aim is to provide a mixed space for eating, drinking, food and retail as well as an area for live events.

Teignbridge Council says the plans will provide ‘up to 10 fixed market stalls, several tabletop stalls for day traders and flexible event space and there will also be six street food stalls along with a bar, which will enable the market to transition from a daytime market into a destination events venue in the evenings’.

It says the ‘ambitious proposals’ will create a 21st century hall, ‘focusing on high quality produce, experiential shopping and local provenance’. 

The application says it aims to ‘look back’ to the historic splendour of the building while improving the quality of the ‘built environment and public realm’ to provide a ‘reinforced focus’ for the town centre.

The resulting final design choices are deemed to be successful in balancing the impact of the proposals on the listed building, versus the benefit gained both from the proposed function as well as the removal of the unsightly existing link between the retail units and the listed structure. 

The planning statement says the plans will ‘help realise its potential of becoming a premier South Devon market town by providing facilities for the increasing local and wider population and increased leisure and entertainment opportunities, enhancing the night time economy’.

Also planned are external landscape works to the space between the hall building and the retail units, including the entrance to the service yard from Market Street, to create a new, high quality, pedestrian link between Market Street and Market Square.

The scheme also includes refurbishing the main hall space to be reused as a venue for street food stalls, retail, seating areas, a bar area and flexible event space. 

Public toilets on the first floor will be removed and reopened as a cafe area with a new central staircase connected to the main space.

A new accessible entrance is planned off the main market hall building and new modern, accessible WC facilities.