SIR,

While I applaud Margaret Bevan's letter (Farmers need to stand up against Abergavenny market closure, Beacon 26th October), and admire her call to arms to prevent the market moving out of town, she misses a few points that make the move inevitable.

As a young boy, I used to go to Abergavenny, Monmouth or Hereford market with my parents to sell our animals. It was how farmers traded, and how they did business.

The town thrived on market days, shops did good business, the bank manager was pleased to see you.

Then came the 'townies'. Oh they didn't like the smell of the market, they couldn't stand the moo-ing, and they were shocked to see lambs and calves penned up all day.

Farmers came to recognise that as well as becoming unpopular clogging up the roads, their £ wasn't going as far as the townies' £ and hardware stores, and farm shops began to disappear.

Animal welfare reforms changed the way the dealers could do their business, and farmers were becoming fed up with 'fighting' their way into the town centre.

I can still remember the one bridge in Hereford taking all the Wednesday traffic from the south of the town on a market day, imagine that with today's traffic.

As agriculture changed and fewer manual workers were employed in favour of increased mechanisation, the townies piled into the countryside and snapped up all the little cottages, and immediately extended them to twice their size, making them too expensive for anyone else.

Those 'townies' then demanded more shops, restaurants, coffee houses and parking spaces which, to be fair, enabled the town to continue to prosper as the rural pound was losing ground fast to the city pound, and the council looked to the valuable city centre spaces, formerly occupied by a collection of animal pens, traders' corrugated sheds and 1960s-designed market buildings.

As farmers, we were saddened to see a traditional way of life that created our market town come to an end, but we were compensated by an out of town location, as in Hereford, fit for the modern day.

Admittedly Monmouth farmers were denied a local market, (that Wonastow LDP site would have been fine and dandy), and Abergavenny farmers will have to be grateful that Morrisons were able to help out with MCC's burgeoning debt as the rateable value of the site will soar, and the additional revenue of 269 car park spaces will help (£1,000 per day?).

It's not just confined to Monmouthshire, Gloucester's market site is now a shopping centre, Chippenham's is a housing estate and Cirencester's old site is a sports centre.

Remember Ross market? Even though it was not a prime town location, it was a wise move to the present site and allowed the market to expand to accommodate increased traffic.

We now send our animals direct to Merthyr Tydfil, at a price guaranteed beforehand, with less travelling involved for the animals, and no long wait for their next drink of water.

Hardly supporting the present day market, I know, but it works well.

Our car parking space is now available for a shopper to use, our carbon footprint has been reduced, and our banking done online.

It's not farming as we remember it, it's not the traditional way of life we once enjoyed, but it's the way the world moves, and we must move with it. Just like having to accept those stupid new 'low energy' bulbs that give us a headache. I could go on.

Grumpy farmer

(Name and address supplied)