AN UNFORESEEN complication has overtaken the question of Bedale Town Council taking over the running of the weekly market in an attempt to make it more viable.

On Monday, they identified a potential stumbling block to any possible transfer of responsibility when they received a letter from Hambleton District Council, which has suggested that the future of the Tuesday market could lie in local hands.

In November, the Hambleton cabinet accepted a recommendation by its environment and economic scrutiny committee that discussions should be started to find out whether the town council would be interested in taking over the market, the focus in 2001 of elaborate celebrations to mark the 750th anniversary of its charter.

Other measures to address the decline of the market, which on Tuesday had only four traders, were suggested, including examination of a conflict between stalls and car parking spaces and more advertising in the district council's newspaper.

But on Monday, the town council received a letter from Eric Kendall, head of environmental health and housing, in which he said no decision on transferring responsibility for the market to local level could be taken, until "quality parish council" status had been achieved.

This prompted an immediate reaction from Coun John Weighell, who said he was surprised that the issue had suddenly been introduced, because it had never been mentioned at either the scrutiny committee or the cabinet.

He said the district council had previously decided that it would only hand over services to town or parish councils with quality status, but added: ''Hambleton seems to be under the impression that we are going for quality status and that this is likely to be achieved by June.

''The costs of the bureaucracy involved in going for quality status would not be cost-effective and would cause more trouble.

''The criteria involved include having a qualified clerk, four newsletters a year and 80pc of members being elected.

''There would be some extra costs involved but those would not be very great.''

Members heard that Carricks of Snape, which has traded on local markets for many years, had expressed an interest in running Bedale on behalf of the town council by collecting rents.

Councillors agreed that in principle they would be interested in taking over the market, as long as there were no unfavourable cost implications.

They added, however, that they were prepared to argue the point about quality council status with Hambleton, saying this issue needed clarification.

Deputy mayor Coun Malcolm Young said later that the town council was already trying to aspire to the standards involved in quality status to give local people the best possible service.

If Hambleton insisted on the town council gaining official recognition, however, this could prove an obstacle to negotiations about transfer of the market.

The recent review of Bedale was the third in five years by the scrutiny committee, which concluded that the idea of attracting a monthly farmers' market back to the town as an added incentive for shoppers and visitors was now ''stone dead'.'

* See town council report, page