FOR 17 months Swindon’s tented market has stood empty and idle.

Now there is hope it could be reopened.

Property company Panther Securities has bought the site and is now considering what to do with it.

Already the company has told the Advertiser that it would consider offers from traders to move back in.

The company says it will take around four months to refurbish the market, which closed its doors in October 2007.

Chairman Andrew Perloff said: “At the moment we are considering our options, but we certainly wouldn’t rule out reopening it as a market.

“It will need significant work done on it before that could happen but if enough traders come forward then we would certainly consider it seriously.

“We have had experience with markets and have properties all over the country.

“I don’t have any other properties in Swindon but it is a good town for us. It is centrally located and the property is a good size.”

Andrew Halliday, who ran the Gothic shop Moontanic, said he would be keen to move back.

He said: “It would take us a while to get the money together to do it because it set us back a lot having to move out of there in the first place.

“We only spent three months in the market because we weren’t told when we first started that it would be closing.

“Then we moved to Morley Street, but we just couldn’t survive there.

“We were paying three times what the market cost us. I also don’t think people really know where Morley Street is.

“Swindon needs a market.”

But Wendy Benson, from Lanterns Cafe, also known as Jumbo Snacks, said she would not want to go back to the market.

“It seems pretty mean that after the way treated us just to get us out it might end up as a market again,” she said. “I don’t think we would be going back. Most of the traders have gone now, so I’m not sure who would be interested.

“Swindon does need a market though.”

The tented market closed in October 2007 and brought down the curtain on 100 years of market trading in the town centre.

After it closed various plans were proposed for the building, including shifting it to London’s Olympic village in time for the 2012 games, but they came to nothing.

Last year councillors debated ambitious plans to put restaurants, cafes and shops on the site. The scheme was deferred in February and again in May before being rejected outright in July.

Now the site is under new ownership things look different.

Joanne Taylor-Stagg, president of the Swindon Chamber of Commerce, said: “I think returning to a market would depend on how the market was done – whether it would be suitable for the town or not.

“It would need to be in keeping with the regeneration going on in the town centre.

“It wouldn’t work if you had something cheap and cheerful in the middle of a well designed and successful shopping precinct.

“However I have seen some nice markets that fit well in the areas surrounding them.”