Casewells is due to open at Bury Market this autumn with 12 food units and a bar, but no date is set. The council is lending the operator up to £1.1m.
Casewells, the food and events hall built alongside Bury Market, is due to open this autumn. No opening date has been announced. The venue’s own website says only “Autumn 2026” and invites people to sign up for details.
What the council has committed to is a matter of public record, and it is more than a lease. The venue will be run by Midlands Events Bury Ltd. The terms were set out in a report to Bury Council’s Cabinet on 11 February 2026. The council’s August update names the same firm as the operator.
What the council agreed
- A 15-year lease of the ground floor, with an option for a further 10 years.
- A 12-month rent-free period.
- A loan of up to £1.1m to fund the internal fit-out: food units, bar infrastructure, stage, furniture and equipment.
- The lease is contracted out of Part 2 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954, so there is no automatic right to renew when the term ends.
- The loan is secured against the fit-out works and tied to the lease, so the council can act on the lease if repayments stop.
The report is candid about why the council is not running the venue itself. It considered doing so and rejected it “due to lack of internal capacity and experience of operating modern food and entertainment facilities”.
It is equally candid about the risks. It lists three: that the operator defaults on the loan, that it stops trading, and that it misses its performance targets. On the second, the council says it has “invested in changes to the design of the building to make sure it’s suitable for reuse or occupation of another food and events hall operator”.
What is actually going inside
The ground floor will have 12 food and retail units, a central bar and a stage for entertainment and events. There is a projector and music booth on the first floor which the operator may take on as well.
Casewells is required to open at least six days a week, from 10am until late. That is the point of it. The council’s stated vision, set out in the same report, is blunt about what the town centre lacks. Bury “has many daytime casual eating venues, but the night-time offer is much weaker”. The council also wants food good enough “to draw in an audience from the wealthier catchments around Bury who do not use the town centre”.
Midlands Events will recruit and select the traders, run the events programme, and report performance figures back to the council. The council says it wants local food businesses in the mix, and both the operator and the council have published contact addresses for anyone who wants a unit.
How it got here
The money came first. In October 2021 the council learned its bid to the government’s Levelling Up Fund had succeeded, bringing £20m towards the Bury Market regeneration scheme, of which Casewells is the centrepiece. The council is also putting in matching investment.
The search for an operator opened on 19 March 2025, run by Sixteen Real Estate with STAR Procurement. Meetings with interested firms ran through the spring and summer, and in October 2025 the council signed a six-month exclusivity agreement with Midlands Events while it worked up detailed proposals.
Midlands Events is a family business set up in 2016. Its main reference point is Queens Market in Rhyl, run for Denbighshire County Council, which the report says launched in July 2025 with full trader occupancy and 50,000 visitors in its first month.
By February 2026 the frame was up, the roofs, floors, lifts and staircases were in, windows were going in and the air handling units had been lifted onto the lower roof. Vinci was working to a planned completion of mid-June 2026, with a two to three month fit-out after handover. That is the arithmetic behind “autumn”.
Where the name comes from
The building spent most of its life on paper as the Bury Flexi Hall. The council consulted the public on three names: Casewell’s Corner, Hope Hall and Yarn Corner.
Casewell’s Corner won on the heritage link. Historians believe Casewell’s on Union Street was where Bury’s first black pudding was made and sold, in 1810. But some respondents said “Corner” made it sound like a small space, so the council dropped the word and the apostrophe and settled on Casewells.
Hope Hall was thought positive but not distinctive. Yarn Corner drew support for the nod to the borough’s textile history, but people felt it did not convey the size of the building.
The building itself
Casewells is built to BREEAM Excellent standard and designed with the potential to be carbon neutral in operation. It has solar panels on the roof, roof-mounted air source heat pumps supplying heat and hot water, and timber cladding on the outside elevations and the colonnade.
New public realm is being laid along Princess Parade as part of the same job.
What it means for you
- There is no opening date. Anyone telling you one is guessing. The council’s target is autumn 2026 and the operator’s own site says the same.
- If you run a food business and want one of the 12 units, the operator is recruiting traders now, and the council has said it is “particularly keen” for local food businesses to benefit.
- If you use the market, expect building work along Princess Parade until the public realm is finished.
- The council’s money is in this twice: the £20m Levelling Up award for the wider market scheme, and now a loan of up to £1.1m to the operator on top.
Coming into town for it? Charges at the council car parks and at The Rock are on our parking in Bury page, and note that The Rock’s car park goes cashless on 7 September. Events at the market and across the borough are listed on our things to do in Bury page.
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