Newton Abbot Town Council is to ask for extra time to consider its formal response to the £4m proposal to re-develop Market Walk, as the Mayor, Cllr Mike Hocking, warned that the town's market town status should be protected with members' lives.
Representations are due to be made to Teignbridge Council by June 19, but at Wednesday night's meeting of the town council's finance and general purposes committee members asked for a further week's grace.
The final decision will then be taken by a full council meeting on June 26 – with evidence that members are split on the issue.
Discussion centred on the controversial proposal to move the market traders to the first floor of a re-developed Market Hall, which Cllr Walter Singleton described as 'the height of folly.'
During discussions with between 10 and 15 traders he hadn't found one who agreed with the idea, he told the committee.
He said he would like to talk to the developers – Halladale Developments Ltd – as he could suggest a lot of ideas the firm could use for that first floor.
The elderly and disabled would be 'very put off,' by the planned escalators, he warned. Cllr Mike Hocking said he was sitting on the fence as he could see the potential as well as the traders' worries.
'Newton Abbot is a market town. We must protect this with our lives,' he said.
Cllr Mike Chope said it was important that the council took the market traders – 'the lifeblood of the town,' – with them as they looked to the future.
'If Newton Abbot is not a market town, then it is basically nothing,' he declared. The market was looking 'shabby and depressed.'
Cllr Ken Lewis said he didn't want the traders to fall into the trap of thinking that if they stayed where they were someone was going to put more money in.
Cllr David Howe said the market looked 'hideous'; and needed cheering up. The council had to be careful that traders on a seven-day contract didn't grab the headlines and say 'over my dead body' to the new scheme.
If Halladale didn't get the wherewithal to make a profit nothing was going to get done.