Last updated at 17:00, Friday, 09 November 2012

An indoor market will open at the Carlton in Maryport town centre next week.

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The market, with 12 custom-designed stalls, will open at 1pm on Wednesday.

Carlton owner Steve Wood said this week that he will no longer make or decorate china from the premises and had closed his business, VIP.

He is also considering the future of his shop in Cockermouth as he turns his attention to running the market.

The market will be officially opened by Lillie-Mai Jackson, the two-year-old from Maryport who lost her legs and an arm to meningitis when she was 14 weeks old. Five per cent of the first day’s takings will go to the fund to raise money for her prosthetic legs.

Mr Wood transferred his china glazing and manufacturing business to Maryport from Stoke four years ago and, with funding from an Allerdale council regeneration scheme, he turned one of Maryport’s major eyesore buildings into a new manufacturing business with a cafe on the ground floor.

Within four months the cafe was closed after dry rot was discovered.

Builders who had carried out the renovations went out of business and Mr Wood was left with the cost of repairing the damage and ensuring that the building was made safe.

He said: “I did sometimes think of walking away but Cumbria is my home now and I am staying.”

Last week Mr Wood received planning approval to build seven apartments on the first and second floors of the Carlton.

The indoor market is on the ground floor and a small cafe will be reopened.

First published at 11:53, Friday, 09 November 2012
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk