KUCHING: The former Gambier Street Market will be demolished to make way for the proposed extension of the waterfront as the decades old structures are deemed unsafe.

Kuching City North Datuk Bandar Abang Mohamad Atei Medaan said the old market comprising the vegetable, poultry and fish markets would be knocked down but did not mention when it would take place.

“All structures will be demolished as assessment from the Public Works Department (JKR) showed that these were too old and not suitable to be kept,” he told reporters here yesterday.

Atei said the structures could not be salvaged, adding that the department did not recommend to the city hall to preserve the buildings.

“Safety comes first,” he pointed out.

Asked if the concrete retaining wall along Sungai Sarawak stretching from Pangkalan Batu to the markets and wharves that was built by Rajah Charles Brooke in 1902 would be preserved, he said Kuching North City Commission (DBKU) had yet to decide.

On the progress of the extension, Atei said the city hall had asked consultants to make various submissions for the proposed project.

Last month, Chief Minister Pehin Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud announced that the site that used to house hundreds of hawkers right up to Ban Hock Wharf would be turned into an esplanade as part of the waterfront extension.

On June 15, the majority of hawkers were relocated at MBKS Stutong Community Market.

Taib had said he had asked DBKU to prepare the plan but envisioned that the esplanade would have lots of trees to provide the much needed shade on sunny days and make the city a greener and better place to live in.

Once completed, he said the esplanade would stretch from Kuching Hilton to Ban Hock Wharf as well as across the river to ensure both riverbanks would be developed beautifully and making them a popular recreational spot for city dwellers and visitors.

He said the proposed extension would turn ‘unorganised part of the old days by the riverbanks into a scenic recreational place’.

In June, Sarawak Heritage Society (SHS) had expressed its concern about the old market, saying that the buildings should be preserved.

“The Gambier Street Market has outstanding heritage value,” said its president Mike Boon.

Harriete McDougall’s writing and water colour paintings in ‘Sketches of Our Life At Sarawak’ roughly told us how old the market really was, he said.

Based on Harriet’s description and other records, he said the society believed that Gambier Street Market was older than what had been written on the market’s wall.

On the wall of the vegetable market, it was written that it was built in 1935, poultry market in 1959 and the garment store in 1929.