No Automatic Permission for Open-Air Markets

To stop land in Nelson Road, Westward Ho! being used as a weekly open-air market this summer, Torridge District Council’s Development Committee have issued a direction that the usual automatic permission for events of this kind shall not apply.

The Order, which will be notified to the Secretary of State for the Environment, has immediate effect.

A letter read from the solicitors for the owners of the land contended that such a weekly market encouraged more people to visit Westward Ho! to shop and did not adversely effect local traders.

Cllr Keith Evers said there was some truth in this in that it brought some trade to certain shops with which the market was not in competition, but the market was thoroughly disliked by residents living nearby and by traders with which it competed and it had caused a lot of ill-feeling.

Gazette article dated 6 May 1977