OKEHAMPTON Town Council has apologised to Market Hall traders who were forced to vacate their stalls to allow a Christmas fair for local charities to take place last month. The council says such a mix-up will not happen again. A number of disgruntled traders turned up at the market hall on the day of the fair to protest about not being given fair notice about the situation. The fair, organised by the EX20 Lottery, took place on Saturday, November 20, but traders say the market operator Pam Powlesland was given only a few days? notice that the event had been given priority in the market hall. The charity fair had originally been booked for the Charter Hall. Organisers then decided they wished to move the event into the Market Hall, but the town council accepted that, for whatever reason, this had not been properly communicated to Mrs Powlesland and the market traders. Speaking to the town council at a meeting of its properties committee last week, town clerk Don Bent said he was ?acutely embarrassed? about the situation and said he could promise traders it ?certainly won?t happen again?. Mr Bent praised Mrs Powlesland?s hard work in building up the number and variety of traders since taking over the management of the market earlier this year. Angry traders affected by the decision last month said they had been attending the Saturday markets all year, through the quiet periods and had been looking forward to the run-up to Christmas, the time of year when they do most business. The traders said they were all for helping charity, but they felt there were plenty of other days of the week when such a event could have been held, without damaging their livelihood. Trader Zoe Hewitt, who sells jewellery at the market, said: ?We had customers coming to pick things up, but through no fault of our own, we end up looking really unreliable.? She said that at the late stage at which the traders were told of the cancellation of the market, there was not enough time to arrange to go to another town to trade as pitches elsewhere were full up, resulting in many losing a whole day of trading. Cllr Charles Letchford said the council accepted a ?wrong had been done? and apologised for that. He made the proposal that Mrs Powlesland be given the next Saturday market free of charge and suggested the money saved might be dispersed among traders to go some way towards ?offsetting the loss suffered by traders.? This gesture was backed by councillors. Chair of the properties committee Cllr Mike Davies said it was important for all the different traders and the council to sit down and agree to work together to prevent similar confusion in the future.