Sir, - I am astonished that two market traders can try to be amusing about something quite serious. I refer to the letter "Woolly thinking" (D&S, Sept 22). I can only assume that they feel threatened by what they call a dozen stalls. Perhaps woolly thinking sums up their brain process.

I am the soap maker accused of buying soap from a well-known commercial supplier. I have challenged these gentlemen to contact me by phone with proof of their accusation that my soap is not hand made by me. As yet these novelists are obviously too busy sewing wax jackets and acrylic garments for their next farmers' market to contact me.

I thought that according to farmers' market federation rules up to 20pc crafts are allowed at farmers' markets. I was invited to the farmers' market because they were looking for products that were different from any other trader in Northallerton, so as not to upset any other established local trader. If my product isn't welcome in Northallerton please feel free to contact me on my web site www.mothernatures.co.uk. I would also like to make another suggestion that if any Northallerton farmer is making soap and would like to attend the farmers market I will gladly step aside.

I was led to believe that farmers were encouraged to diversify from traditional farming in order to survive. Tell me why I attend farmers markets all over Yorkshire seeing farmers who make ice cream, bake, farm ostrich and wild boar, make cheese, chutney and jams. A farmer's wife in Sheffield does flower arranging at local craft fairs. Is she not allowed on a farmers' market because she hasn't brought her husband's pork or beef? Where is it written in stone what a farmer should produce? Why should anything different from traditional farming products be snubbed. What are you looking for? A farmers' market full of sugar beet and corn?

How can you mock people for at least making the effort to encourage more local trading in Northallerton? I believe this can only enhance the reputation that Northallerton already has, of being one of the best market towns in the North of England. Maybe it's because the wholesaler they buy their stock from isn't within the 50 mile radius and they've been refused a stall on the farmers market. Who knows?

KYM McNICHOL

Soap maker

Northallerton Farmers' Market.

A rival market

Sir, - I could not stop laughing at the comments made by Mr Stephen Knox of Cledale farmers' market at Northallerton (D&S, Sept 15). From the word go this man has manipulated every avenue known to man to put in place a rival market to those already in trouble. I have been a trader for nearly two years now and have supported the markets in Bedale, Thirsk & Northallerton.

I worked the markets from 1971 to 1981 and so class myself as able to speak for a large representation of market traders. You only have to look at pictures taken over the last ten to twenty years to see that the markets are in decline.

The farmers are not the only people that need help. All High Street businesses are finding it increasingly hard to survive and only today I saw an article in the D&S that market towns are in need of regeneration, Why?

Out of town developments, car boot sales, Sunday markets and now farmers 'markets, all have contributed to the demise of the town centres and the markets therein.

Shops and markets have supported farmers for generations and if allowed to survive, will do so for many years to come.

If a farmers' market was all about farmers and nothing else it would be a sparse market that would not survive on its own. For that reason when we visited a so-called farmers' market we found polyester and acrylic-lined fleeces. Are we really raising good old fashioned sheep in Yorkshire or has genetic modification reached new heights in the north.

When the lady selling cards was asked the source of her calendars she replied "I just buy them in". You would think that this late in the year at least the calendar crop would be ready.

Why not let the farmers farm and the traders trade. That is how we supported you for decades and you supported us.

M DOHERTY

Neile Close,

Romanby,

Northallerton.

Wrong signs

Sir, - Bureaucrats are go! All shall be equal, by kind permission of the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority.

Intrigued by a planning application notice for an illuminated sign at our Fox & Hounds inn, I discovered that this stemmed not from our landlord, but from the national park. A wholesale change of all signs at the Fox - a Grade II listed building - is required by the park's planning officers.

The nub of the matter is that recently the park planning officers paid a visit to the Fox & Hounds and advised the landlord - who inherited the existing signs when he took over four years ago - that none of the external signs had planning permission and that there were too many of them anyway. Are all pubs and hostelries in the Dales National Park to be similarly assessed?

The changes are not cheap. The cost to the Fox & Hounds will be approximately £1,000 in total. The planning officer, in response, said: "No problem, surely the breweries will pay". Not so. The costs fall squarely on the landlord. Nothing like a bit of bureaucratic help, and ignorance, to add to the burden of these hard times.

D B G BARRACLOUGH

Chestnut Garth,

West Witton.