‘Blinkered’ councillors should back town market

I WISH to register my dismay at the opposition to the proposed Clonakilty market by members of the town council. The market is welcomed by the vast majority of Clonakilty residents and traders alike.

The so-called concerns of those councillors opposing the market seem spurious and obfuscating.

For instance, the laughable suggestion has been made that the town market would threaten “the capacity of the council to pay for essential projects such as footpath upgrades, playgrounds and housing”.

Come off it. Stallholders pay fees in direct proportion to the amount of time they trade, so it is wholly untrue to make out that established businesses are in any way subsidising the stallholders from the rates they pay.

As a Clonakilty resident, I believe the market is opposed only by a handful of people — some of whom fear their own business interests may be affected if the market goes ahead.

These objections are ill-informed and blinkered. Trading improves in all towns with farmers’ markets — if shopkeepers and others are prepared to stock the sort of produce that people flock to buy from the stalls.

They also gain substantially from increased passing trade for items not available at the market.

As one trader explained at a recent public meeting, his trade increased by 60% when the market was held for one day in defiance of the town council — despite the fact that the stallholders were in direct competition with him for sales of the same sort of produce.

Supermarkets also have a distinct advantage in that the demand created by the market stalls for high quality foods and other things will be there seven days a week while the market itself will only run on one. Supervalu in Clonakilty has been quick to exploit the well-established local demand for health foods created by the excellent health food shops in recent years and it can provide enough parking space for the whole of west Cork if needs be in its own equally controversial, if largely unused, multi-storey car park — certainly more than enough to compensate for the 18 spaces which the proposed market would occupy on Fridays.

There is also a large open car park — again mainly unused — close to the proposed market site. No, there is no shortage of parking space in Clonakilty.

The market proposal is to be put to a vote again on the September 2 and it can only be hoped that these council members will come to their senses.

Miriam Cotton

Woodlands

Clonakilty

Co Cork