 Following the First World War, the local authority began to systematically buy up all the stalls on the market, eventually bringing the entire market into public ownership. It was radically redesigned in the 1930s: stalls were arranged into parallel rows and a new City Hall was built along the entire western side of the marketplace to replace the by then inadequate Guildhall. This new arrangement survived with few significant changes for the rest of the 20th century. By the 1990s, the market was becoming decrepit and, in 2003, proposals were made for another radical rebuilding of the area. These proposals were extremely controversial and were abandoned in 2004 in favour of a scheme which retained the parallel rows of stalls, but replaced the old stalls with steel units of four stalls each. The rebuilt market was completed in early 2006 and is one of the largest markets in Britain.
