COUNCILLORS are making a last-ditch bid to save Kidderminster's retail market - but traders claim they have been badly let down.

The Worcester Street building is now so dilapidated that structural engineers have recommended its closure at the end of the year on safety grounds.

Wyre Forest District Council has agreed to press on with attempts to find a commercial market company prepared to invest in an indoor market in the town - despite a report that this was "unlikely to be viable."

It is also to continue pressing Weavers Wharf developers Centros Miller and Highstone Estates to provide an outdoor market on which existing indoor and outdoor stallholders would be given first refusal.

The developers have put plans for stalls on the new market square on ice pending the outcome of the future of the adjacent Piano Building because it is feared a market could have a detrimental effect on the potential retail opportunities being considered for the derelict wool store.

Commercial services portfolio holder Councillor Keith Robertson said: "We have to keep trying to find a solution - we cannot lose hope.

"We shall make every endeavour we can to sort it out by Christmas."

In his report to the executive Mr Robertson said most traders did not wish to operate more than two days a week, which made finding commercial units difficult because landlords wanted a minimum commitment of five days a week.

On the option of continuing to look for a company to provide an indoor market he admitted that "given the current decline of markets nationally, this is unlikely to be viable."

Ken Panting, chairman of the Kidderminster branch of the Market Traders' Federation, presented last Thursday's executive meeting with a 400-name petition - collected in just one day - calling on the council to find suitable premises.

"The council has been promising us a new home ever since moving us temporarily to Worcester Street 30 years ago. It was in the plans for an indoor market at Weavers Wharf until 2001 and they have been looking for another site since then.

"But we have never been offered anywhere and I can't see them finding somewhere in the next few months. They don't seem to realise this is our livelihoods - we have been very badly let down," said Mr Panting, who has run a curtain stall in Kidderminster for 32 years.

He claimed the council's statement that most of the 25 stallholders only wanted to trade for two days in Kidderminster was based on a survey carried out four years ago and said many would now trade for more days.

Traders who vented their anger at the executive meeting were having talks yesterday with council chiefs to outline their complaints.