1.1  Farmers' markets have been held in Petersfield since November 1999.  In September this committee approved the holding of farmers' markets in Petersfield on a monthly basis.

2.1  Hampshire Farmers Markets ("HFM"), co-ordinated by the County Council, has run farmers' markets in Alton Town and other Districts throughout Hampshire.  However, the Petersfield market has until now used a private operator.  The private sector operator provided the Petersfield market at no cost, apart from start up advertising costs.  Therefore, the cost to this Council, as landowner of The Square in Petersfield, was lower than that for Hampshire Farmers Markets.

2.2  Hampshire County Council has secured a grant of £70,000 from the European Social Fund to enable the Hampshire Farmers Markets to develop, to provide business support and training and help move the project towards sustainability.  This reduces the costs to the public sector which has provided pump-priming support.   As a result of this, HFM has been able to offer to run all 11 markets in Petersfield in 2001 without charging the District Council for specific services.  These include maintaining the database of farmers and local producers, organising the individual markets, and providing and erecting stalls.  HFM is also employing a dedicated farmers' markets co-ordinator who will be the main point of contact with the individual farmers and producers.  There will also be support from the Economic Development Office of HCC in Winchester.

2.3  The programme of farmers' markets will be widely promoted throughout Hampshire, including Andover, Romsey, Ringwood, Hythe, Fleet, Basingstoke, Winchester, Southsea and Odiham as well as Alton and Petersfield.

2.4  The only matters for which the District Council will remain responsible are:

• arranging for road closures - there is no external cost involved in this (which is undertaken by the District Council's Environmental Health Department);
• street cleaning after the markets - this is a relatively minor item, estimated at under £500 per annum, which can be contained within the Property Group budgets for 2001/02;
• local marketing support - a figure of £4,000 has been included in the District Council's Economic Development budget for 2001/02.

2.5  Woodland Craft Markets took over the remainder of a one-year contract to run farmers' markets in Petersfield in August 2000 when Profile Marketing Associates (who ran the first markets) relocated to America. They were offered the opportunity to compete for the contract when it came up for renewal, but were reluctant to enter into a process with an uncertain outcome at time when they were making firm plans for 2001.

2.6  The first market to be run by HFM will be in February (there is no farmers' market planned for January) and this will continue on the first Sunday of each month up to and including December 2001. The arrangements for running farmers' markets in subsequent years will be considered by the Hampshire Farmers Markets consortium and its partners during the course of 2001.

2.7  The decision to appoint Hampshire Farmers Markets to run the District Council's farmers' markets in Petersfield was taken by the Land and Property Manager under his delegated powers.