At the market: Vital opinion poll on car parking

I find it of great concern that the council officers, who are after all our paid servants, managed to produce a 127 page booklet recommending that the charging regime should continue with a more complex and expensive administration financed with higher fees and larger penalties.

Although it has been extremely hard to get any advance information on the content of the report, Ryedale Business Action group believes that it opposes free car parking. A public opinion survey conducted for Ryedale District Council apparently found that car parking charges were not a strong motivator in people's shopping habits - they shopped where there was the best variety for their needs.

The RBA, representing the four market towns, is today starting its own campaign to sample public views on the issue.

Opinion poll forms will be available at most shops and businesses, including the cattle markets at Malton and York. The opportunity to vote will not last as long as the American election, so if you have strong views on the car parking issue, don't be apathetic, get signed up quickly.

Here are some of the issues that the RBA consider relevant:

The current charging policy is profitable, bringing in around £250,000 per year into the council coffers.

The administration costs are high, with complex expensive ticket machines and warden control.

To varying degrees the business activity in the centre of all four market towns has been reducing, but most critical is Malton where shop closures come thick and steadfast, despite Roddy Bushell's laudable efforts.

Comparably, the High Streets of neighbouring market towns, such as Thirsk, Stokesley and Northallerton, are all buzzing with life. They have free parking.

Rival out of town shopping centres offer free parking as well as shopping trolleys!

This Government has directed that public authorities should carry out "best value reviews" on their activities and our council officers have tried to do this in their lengthy car parking report.

The RBA thinks the thrust of their recommendations is summarised as follows:

Car parking fees should remain and in some cases be increased.

Ryedale citizens will, on application, be entitled to a "smart card" which can be used in the ticket machines to give a discount.

Penalty fines should be increased to £50.

The RBA considers an element of free parking in the centre of our market towns is essential if we are to save them from total abandonment; but on the other hand we must try and ensure that the parking is used by Ryedale shoppers on a short stay basis, and not by office workers looking for an all day space. Its proposed solution is as follows:

There should be a two hour free parking period in the centre of towns which would be disc operated, similar to Harrogate and other towns. This would get rid of the complicated and annoying ticket machinery.

The long stay car park would remain on a fee-charging basis.

Penalty fines would not be increased.

Administration costs would be reduced as there would be no need for the ticket machines in the centre of towns nor for the introduction of the expensive smart card system.

It is our belief that the RBA's proposals would find a proper balance between regenerating our town centres, by making them attractive to Ryedale rate payers, compared with the need to maintain income for supporting our other public services.

If you agree don't delay your vote.

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On a much more pleasant note, I have started to read the legendary Tom Midgley's book "Reflections on the Changing Years". It is a lovely book, faithfully written by Ruth Beckett, and records Tom's memories over the past 92 years since his birth in 1908 at Acklam Wold.

It is a fascinating cameo of a century of country life which anyone interested in Ryedale's rural history should have on their bedside table.

It will make an excellent Christmas present and I gather can be obtained from Leefe's shop in Malton for the modest price of £10.

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Time has caught up with me for launching into any other major story this week so here are a few news items in brief:

The number of older cattle now slaughtered and burnt in the cause of BSE eradication, as of last week exceeded 5m in the UK.

MLC is looking for a 6pc levy increase to bring in an additional £2.5m next year, making the total levy up to £34m.

Coupled with this, MLC is going to have a new chairman to succeed Don Curry whose own background was in farming and producer marketing groups. The new chairman will be Peter Barr, the chairman of Hazlewood Foods, a convenience food manufacturer.

With complete unscientific illogicality, the EU has decided to ban fish meal from ruminant feed as from January 1. There seems to be no justification for this latest announcement and the ban will add yet more cost to animal feed for sheep and cattle. I simply do not comprehend how a herring in the North Sea can be at risk from a bovine disease.

MAFF is progressing its programme of computerisation. Electronic submissions for subsidies and IACS applications will be possible during the coming 12 months.

I spent an afternoon in Whitehall last Friday looking at their proposals for cattle traceability and the first phase of the software will be coming on stream in January. It's an important step forward and, as auctioneers, we shall be trying to keep ahead of the game.

I've been rabbitting on about beef labelling for months now and the MLC has conducted some interesting research.

A telephone survey across Great Britain found 88pc of consumers wanted all beef labelled with its country of origin. The Scots and Welsh were even more adamant, with 95pc wanting to know where their meat came from.

I just hope the message gets through to the Government.

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Monday and Tuesday saw 330 pigs offered on the two show days before Christmas. Trade was perhaps not quite as fierce as last week, but nevertheless the Champion pen from David Johnson of Chop Gate made 117p/kilo on Tuesday, being bought by the inimitable Roland Agar, who managed to convey his bids from a convalescent bed following an operation last week - our best wishes to Roland for a speedy recovery - and Fred Horsley hit 101p for his bacon pigs, which was all very satisfactory.

The overall pig average was around 85p/kilo on both days and it is a relief to see our producers back in the black.

We had one of the best shows of cattle for some time with 301 penned up, of which 93 were young bulls.

Unfortunately, there seems to be a temporary glut of bull beef which depressed the trade by around 5-7p/kilo. It was the quality bulls that suffered most and the average would run around 93-94p/kilo.

Patrick Beal rose above the crowd with the best price of the day, at 109p/kilo. Black & whites were correspondingly down.

Michael Harrison sold the clean cattle, which also suffered, although perhaps not as much as the bulls. I wonder if it's due to the upset marketing patterns that we're going to face over the Christmas week.

Intervention-type steers were still making 90-95p/kilo and the best came from Rory Kemp at 108p/kilo.

Amongst the retail butcher cattle it was George Marwood who intends to finish the year as he started, with the top heifer of the day at 125p/kilo.

In the sheep section, we had nearly 1,600 sheep and the averages were 92p/kilo through out.

Top lambs of the day came from Alan Bower at 99p/kilo.

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I received a very interesting letter from Philip Trevelyan, of Spaunton, this week, suggesting that I should put in occasionally the lowest price paid for livestock at the market.

Accepting that this could be a two-edged sword, the lowest priced beast made 49p/k, the lowest priced hoggs came to £15/head, the worst ewes made £1.50 and the bottom pigs 49p/kilo.

I hope this puts some perspective on the trade.

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Next week's markets will be as usual, except that the Christmas sale of poultry will be held on Friday, December 22. Any producers wanting to enter poultry, please contact Charlie Breese as there is getting to be a nice show forward.