NEWGATE Market traders claim they have been "censored" by York council bosses with the removal of a noticeboard.

Brian Card, secretary of the York branch of the National Market Traders' Federation (NTMF), says they used the board to tell traders how to make official complaints against the council.

But City of York Council's market manager Paul Barrett branded the branch "unrepresentative", as it only had a handful of members, and said the board was removed from the market office entranceway to stop the spread of "propaganda".

He has now offered the group an alternative site outside the traders' private toilets in Silver Street.

It is the latest twist in an ongoing row between branch members and market chiefs relating to a number of issues.

Several stallholders say their trade is being wiped out by the council's decision to allow regular "event" market days to go ahead in nearby Parliament Street.

Mr Card, a second-hand book dealer, said he had now put the board up on his stall and launched a weekly newsletter.

"I wanted to advise fellow traders about how to use the council's complaints procedures," he said. "We've been to umpteen meetings with the managers and got nowhere. Taking the board down is censorship - we've been browbeaten and stood on from a very big height."

Mr Card has now complained to council leader Steve Galloway and chief executive David Atkinson about the issue.

But Mr Barrett said they planned to kickstart a new traders' working group which was more representative than the NMTF branch, as it only had "three or four" members. "We were damned if we were going to allow the notice board to stay up," he said.

"What would new traders and the public think? We feel relations have broken down because of the federation branch. We want to get some sort of dialogue back on track through setting up a working group."

Updated: 08:35 Monday, September 29, 2003