Jumped up jobsworths make you scream!

The cries of street traders are part of our rich national heritage. Since the 13th century, Lymington high Street has resonated to the sound of stall-holders plying their wares. For the past 35 years, greengrocer Wayne Bellows has been part of that tradition, the fourth generation of his family to sell fruit and veg in the hampshire town. every Saturday morning he can be found shouting at shoppers, encouraging them to buy his produce.

Come on, darling, luvverly strawberries, only a nicker a bowl.

But now he’s been told to pipe down, because he’s too loud. The local council measured his cries at 111 decibels, the same as a chainsaw or a rock concert.

Following a single complaint, Wayne has been ordered to keep quiet. ‘The council said they had a phone call from a woman saying we were making so much noise shouting. The official said it was under some sort of noise pollution regulation.’

Originally, they told him he couldn’t shout until after lunch, but now the ban has been extended all day.

Wayne, who pays £340 a month for his pitch, is understandably livid. ‘The market has been there for hundreds of years and now someone moves into the high Street and decides they don’t like the noise. It’s part and parcel of street life. It’s part of the atmosphere.

‘If stall-holders cannot shout, then you lose part of that tradition. If I don’t shout out I’m going to be at least 30 to 40 per cent down on profit.’

Market traders are already struggling, like so many small shops today. Town centres are dying, not just because of online competition and out-oftown superstores, but as a result of extortionate rents, sky-high business rates and draconian parking regimes.

Lymington is fortunate still to enjoy a vibrant market culture. So why the does the council seem hell-bent on destroying it?

The town’s mayor, Barry Dunning, said he sympathises with Wayne and describes the market as Lymington’s ‘ crown jewel’. But, with the authentic voice of the Great British Jobsworth, he said the council had no option other than to intervene.

‘Nuisance can be whatever you want to make it. We had a complaint and we had to follow it up.’

No, they didn’t. They could have said to the woman who objected: ‘ Thank you, madam, but the market has been central to life in Lymington for the past 800 years and traders shouting is an integral part of that. We’ve got better things to do than hang around the market with a decibel meter measuring the cries of fruit and veg sellers to see if they breach noise pollution regulations. have a nice day.’

Not every complaint has to be taken seriously and acted upon accordingly. Just because someone objects to something, it doesn’t mean it should be banned.

This isn’t the first time a market trader has fallen foul of an individual with a grievance. Last October, I brought you the saga of Tina Gayle, a stall-holder on Loughborough market, in Leicestershire, who had her licence to trade withdrawn by the local council.

Her‘ crime’ was to refuse to stop selling coffee mugs depicting the ancient order of the Knights Templar. enforcement officers moved in after someone complained that the mugs celebrated the murder of Muslims by Knights Templar during the Crusades and were therefore ‘offensive’.

heaven forfend that anyone should have their sensitivities offended. A council spokesman said: ‘We want the public to have a safe and enjoyable experience when visiting our markets and we have a duty to ensure that items sold do not cause public offence. It’s not for us to comment on why the mugs were offensive to the complainant.’

Yes, it is. Why should a single complaint — whether about ‘offensive’ coffee mugs or a stallholder shouting too loudly — be sufficient to threaten someone else’s right to earn a living, or end a centuries-old tradition?

And while councils are only too willing to dance to the tune of aggrieved individuals, they have no compunction in ignoring wider public opinion, especially when it comes to market traders. The reason that vendors such as Wayne Bellows now sell their fruit and veg in £1 ‘bowls’ — and not the pounds and ounces most of their customers would prefer — is because of the war on imperial measures pursued with Stalinist zeal by Town halls all over Britain.

Councils started persecuting market traders 20-odd years ago, forcing them to adopt metric weights and measures to ‘bring us into line with europe’.

Fishmongers, greengrocers and butchers were all charged with criminal offences because they wouldn’t use kilograms.

One fruit and veg merchant, Steve Thoburn, from Sunderland, was dragged through the courts for the heinous offence of using imperial scales.

Public opinion was firmly on his side, but that didn’t stop the authorities fighting him all the way to the european Court of human rights.

Mr Thoburn died of a heart attack soon after losing his final appeal, aged just 39. he was hounded to death by officialdom.

The Brexit vote was motivated not just by a desire to regain control of our own laws and borders. It was a rejection of the political class at every level, from Brussels right down to parish pump.

That includes the jumped-up jobsworths who think they have the right to micro-manage our lives and stop market traders doing something they’ve been doing for 800 years simply because of a single complaint from someone who finds it ‘offensive’.

Wayne Bellows should tell them all to go to hell. At the top of his voice.