Festive market success despite a few protests

Almost one thousand bargain hunters visited 30 stallholders selling a cornucopia of goods along the High Street on Sunday.

The annual event also provided a positive knock-on effect for other businesses in the town.

Necessarily strict safety regulations were in place with a one-way system along the High Street.

A hand sanitising station was set up and two marshals with radios ensured that only ten people at a time were able to pass in and out.

That raised the hackles of a handful of people.

One of the organisers, Georgiana Craster, explained: “A few people were, like everybody, tired and sick of all the regulations and they went the opposite way, saying ‘this has become a nanny society’, ‘I want to go up the High Street’ but that was only maybe ten out of the 966 who attended behaving badly, all the rest thoroughly enjoyed it.”

The event, co-organised with Sarah Cross of Stems and Len Wyse of Jed Events, with support from the town’s community council, rotary club and others, has been hailed a great success - with most stallholders selling out of goods.

Georgiana added: “The traders who came along were delighted and the comments on Facebook were absolutely amazing, thanking us for doing all the work and saying it is one of the best organised markets.

“The community council was selling hand-painted memory stars and we put them on the Christmas tree, with all the funds raised going towards the Christmas lights.

“We could have had more stalls but we didn’t use the square to avoid things getting out of control.”