A further death

We got to the Farmers’ Market yesterday to discover it is the last one planned for Morecambe. We will be sorry to see it go. In future the nearest one will be on a Saturday in Lancaster. As you will have realised by now we avoid Lancaster as much as possible, & Saturday is the busiest & therefore worst of all days.

We could go over to the farm shop in Conder Green or to the farm we regularly buy our salt marsh lamb from – it's in Cockerham – but both necessitate traversing Lancaster & are quite a trip out.

I’m not quite sure what we will do for meat in future.

There are mutterings they may have another go, on a different site. It has to be admitted the present arrangements have not been the best. The market has been held in a church hall in the middle of a residential area, far away from the shops. As a result few people are even aware of its existence. As for its advertising, that seems to have consisted of a few boards nearby, but unless you are passing you wouldn’t see those. For that matter if you are driving on your own, immersed in conversation or distracted by the view across the Bay, they are easily missed. You certainly wouldn’t make it a place to go out of your way for. They don’t seem to have thought of advertising in the local papers!

The suggestion is the market will maybe move more into the shopping centre which would make a lot more sense. That’s where the shoppers are. It could even become an added attraction to the shopping area. The existing Festival market has few food stalls, none selling meat, so this would be a positive addition. 

At the moment no one seems to want to take on the organisation required to arrange it so the whole concept of a Farmers’ Market may disappear into obscurity, never to be seen again - a pity both for us, the buyers, & for the farmers with high quality meat to sell for which they get a higher percentage of the profit by selling direct to the public.

Meanwhile we will start the new year by finding somewhere else to buy our meat. Although we’ve found a good butcher for chicken, his other meat is disappointing.