As you are aware we continue to experience problems with market boards. The main issues are as follows:

•	That not all traders are returning the boards to the market board area at the end of the day and often boards are left all over the market which makes the market area appear untidy.

•	That some boards are being removed from the Market

•	We do not have adequate storage facilities on the market to store the boards securely 

As a result of these ongoing issues there are some days, when at times we experience a shortage of boards. In order to ensure that we have a sufficient supply the council is spending a considerable amount of money purchasing boards on a regular basis and this is not sustainable. We are therefore proposing to introduce a new system from 1st April 2012.

The proposal is that we will cease to supply market boards as of 1st April 2012 and as a first step donate the existing boards to traders on a first come first served basis.

In addition we plan to provide each trader, where these are required, with one 6 ft x 3ft trestle table per stall. These will be given to each trader that requires one and will then become his or her individual property. They will then be responsible for removing it from the market at the end of each trading day.  If traders require more than one table per stall or subsequently need to replace their allocated table/tables this will be at their cost. 

We hope that by introducing this new system the appearance of the market will improve significantly and that it will be much easier for all traders to set up their stalls each day. 

We hope to have a sample of he type of trestle table we are looking at available for traders to review in the Markets office so if you would like to see  this please contact Andy White or Colin Joyce.