Council handed petition signed by 3,100 calling for market stall U-turn
A petition to save Ormskirk Market’s traditional stalls has been presented to the borough council.
Graham Gilbert, managing director of French Property Centre, had been attending the Saturday markets with the petition, donning Victorian garb and a bell, as a reminder of Ormskirk’s status as a historic market town.
The 3,101-signature petition was handed over on Graham’s behalf by Our West Lancs councillor Adrian Owens at the full council meeting last Wednesday.
In June last year, West Lancashire Borough Council announced changes to the way the market operates.
From April, it will stop assisting traders with stalls, meaning they will have to assemble their own.
Many concerns were raised by local people about the decision – from health and safety risks to whether older traders or those who travel in would bother to continue to trade at the market.
A survey undertaken by council independents OWL in September last year revealed that only one in five stallholders supported the Labourrun council’s proposed changes.
Graham said: “I’d like to thank all the people who stopped to sign the petition to save Ormskirk market’s traditional stalls – the support our campaign received from shoppers and local shopkeepers was fabulous.
“We have over 3,000 signatures and we would have had even more if the last three market days hadn’t been cancelled or decimated by storms and bad weather.
“If the council ignores public opinion and takes our traditional stalls out of service in April I’d like to invite everyone to take a note of the number of stallholders in attendance before and after the change.
“It’s now over to our elected representatives and they’ll ignore these three thousand voices at their peril. We’re watching them and we’ll cast our verdicts on what they do with Ormskirk’s market at election time.”