Farmers protest at Cowbridge Market closure

Farmers are furious about the planned closure of a 200-year-old market in Wales.

Protesters came together on Friday afternoon (13 April) to vent their fury over the possible closure of Cowbridge Market in the Vale of Glamorgan.

The market is the latest to fall victim to ale of Glamorgan Council’s plans to redevelop town centre market sites. The council is proposing to build a new residential site in its place.

Owned by the council, the site is leased to operators Herbert R Thomas and Watts & Morgan, who reopened the market in 2008, seven years after it was closed down after the foot-and-mouth outbreak.

Under the council’s local development plan, the site has been earmarked for residential development and public car parking, with a new market planned at St Mary Hill five miles away.

However, protestors claim the closure of the market, which holds weekly sheep and cattle sales, will devastate the town, and that the council is showing little willing to reinvest the money in a new market.

In the absence of a replacement mart, farmers would have to travel 45 miles to Abergavenny Market, which in itself is likely to be developed into a controversial supermarket site following the repeal of ancient laws which required the local Council to provide a market in the town centre.

“The Leader of the Council held a meeting late last year with farming representatives and other interested parties on the future of a cattle market in the Vale of Glamorgan,” said a council spokesperson.

“Feedback is still awaited from those representatives that attended the meeting. The leader is a strong supporter of the farming community and is committed into appropriate and meaningful discussion with interested parties on the future of the site.”