A TAVISTOCK charity has claimed it is not being consulted over the use of the town?s pannier market on occasions when there is a fifth Saturday in the month. Until earlier this summer, fifth Saturdays in the market were traditionally reserved for charity use. Then the council, which owns the market, decided in view of its increasing popularity, all Saturdays should be available for market traders. But the decision has angered charities such as Tavistock Area Support Services and the Inner Wheel Club, which relied heavily on fifth Saturdays to run large annual fundraising events. Brian Podmore, of TASS, told councillors at last week?s meeting he felt the charity was not being consulted about the way forward regarding fifth Saturdays. Mr Podmore said he had been invited to attend a meeting of the pannier market sub-committee at which the issue had been discussed ? but he had not been allowed to speak: ?Many points were raised which I would have loved to have been involved with, but I wasn?t allowed to join in ? this is not consultation.? Mr Podmore suggested representatives from the charities involved should get together with councillors to come up with a solution ? even if it involved compromises. Cllr Alison-Clish Green said a round-the-table talk with everyone involved putting their point of view was the fairest way forward. Cllr Norma Woodcock said the council had decided that as ?best market town? last year, a proper market should be held on all Saturdays, to protect the viability of traders and shop owners in Tavistock. She said the pannier market sub-committee had come up with some ?very imaginative? ways of helping any organisation which had been affected by the loss of the fifth Saturdays. Cllr Betty Batchelor said she had fought to protect the fifth Saturday for community use for many years: ?I now reluctantly agree that times have moved on. We are now well known as a commercial town, people don?t come from far and wide to be faced with only part of the pannier market open.? The council agreed a meeting should be held to discuss proposals put forward by the sub-committee, in which TASS and the Inner Wheel were offered blocks of eight tables at each monthly mixed market, plus eight tables on the extra mixed markets held on fifth Saturdays. This would provide a total of 80 table spaces to each organisation, for them to allocate to organisations as they saw fit, provided they were paid for by the group as a whole.
