There were three principal reasons behind our attendance at the festival.

Firstly, we wanted to announce the development and forthcoming launch of our new internet venture - atmarket.co.uk. This is a web site to connect local producers with local customers in much the same way we hoped would happen in the Chichester Butter Market, had our proposal been accepted. The Baker & Bond Holding Company are funding the development and atmarket.co.uk will use a business model that I have defined. The site will be ready to launch by September.

Secondly, atmarket.co.uk wanted to raise awareness of the high quality produce grown, caught, and made locally on our own door steps. That’s why we sponsored three separate pitches for the selling of local produce.

Finally, I wanted to express my gratitude and offer special thanks to Mrs Flower and all the brilliant teachers responsible for educating me during my time at Manhood School, so money we raised on the day is being sent to the school. I’m delighted to say that I’ll be sending a  cheque for £2,584 to the Headmaster within the next fortnight.

The local produce we made available met the demands of the hungry crowd of festival goers and the entertainment we laid on for the children was especially well received. The photo below shows the At Market team at work preparing delicious sausages sourced from Goodwood Estates.

You can see more photos of the event - taken by Juliet Weymouth of the At Market team - in a flickr set here.

Thanks must also go to the Selsey Business Partnership for all the work they put into organising the event, not just this year but every year.

Come and meet us in Selsey on Saturday July 5th 2008.

As part of the Selsey Sea Festival, we’re going to showcase a range of locally sourced produce - all for sale at ‘market prices’. Keep coming back for updates but at the moment our confirmed line-up includes:

• A spit roast hog from Goodwood Estates - accompanied by Goodwood sausages barbecued to perfection;
• A range of ketchups and sauces from The Relish in Spice Company
• Buns, baps, and scones from The Village Bakery
• Various locally made cakes
• Local Selsey fish served in our Sushi Bar.

You’ll have no problem finding something to keep you going throughout the day.

If you know any local producers - or you are one! - who might like to sell goods at our pitch on the day, please get in touch by sending an email to julietATjulietweymouthDOTwanadooDOTcoDOTuk with your details. As with our plans for the Butter Market, we’ll happily sell your produce on a sale-or-return basis for a simple tolling fee (i.e. you only pay commission on what is sold).

In addition to serving superb food, we’ve arranged for a variety of entertainment to keep old and young alike amused:

• CHEF CLOWN - A Modern Day Clown, who does juggling with vegetables, clowning, alongside educational instruction for young people about healthy eating and food.
• BALLOON MODELER - A fun and fabulous balloon modeler will be on hand to create farmyard animals, chef’s hats, fruit bowls and more.
• FELIX BRENT THE ENGLISH GENT - This English gentleman will bid you ‘Good Day’ as he cycles past you on his Victorian Penny Farthing. Watch his clever tricks as he masters the difficult are of riding this old-fashioned bicycle.
• VICTORIAN LADY - This beautifully tall and elegant lady will gladly stop and pass the time of day, as she elegantly strolls past you on her stilts.
• VICTORIAN THEMED WALKABOUT CHARACTER - With plenty of interesting facts about the local produce, this Victorian character has a wealth of information and unusual facts. Make sure you check out what she has in her pram!
• FOOD-FUN ART TABLE - Get creative with the help of our fabulous art worker, who can help you create all sorts of exciting things, including your own plates of food using model magic and salt dough, still life pictures framed with banana and fruit shapes, potato people, and pepper prints!

There’s a serious side to all this, of course. Not only are we hoping to raise the profile of local produce and producers but also, we’re going to have an announcement about the future of local food in the Chichester area. If you can’t make it on the day, you’ll just have to wait until we put the news up here on the blog!

The following will also be present on the site as part of the festival itself:

• A Live Blues/Rock band
• Children’s Fancy Dress
• A Dog Show
• A Fishing Competition - with a first prize of £150
• A Classic Car and Motorbike Show – we expect more than 30 vehicles
• A Dancing Demonstration

It looks like being a great day out. Make sure you’re there.

Since the development decision was made, my team has received numerous comments through the web site and in person from local producers and consumers. Without fail, these comments express extreme unhappiness with the council’s decision and the development plan for the Butter Market. At the request of the Observer, I forwarded some of these comments to the paper, along with an overview of what our alternative proposal of a Toll Market meant for Chichester’s taxpayers and the local economy as a whole.

The lack of response from the Mayor to my open letter, followed by the absence of any coverage in the Observer, leads me to conclude that the paper’s news team agrees with the council that Chichester’s citizens are actually in favour of the proposed development and that the complaints aired by concerned consumers and disheartened producers carry no weight.

With only four of the twenty elected councillors responsible for voting for the winning proposal in the first instance, I had hoped that the Observer might investigate, not only why this was the case, but also whether the remaining sixteen councillors felt happy with the decision. I am slightly heartened, however, by the fact that minutes from a recent Finance Committee meeting show that Orion have now amended - or been asked to amend - their winning bid to include an outlet offering “produce from the local economy”. This can only be as a result of our continued pressure.

Personally, I do not see how another supermarket type outlet can bring reward to all local taxpayers. It is obviously a far cry from the “Toll Market” that our bid sought to re-create (something the building was originally constructed to deliver over 200 years ago) and, furthermore, I feel desperately sad that the city has lost an opportunity to benefit financially the thousands of hard-working taxpayers of Chichester who are the rightful owners of the Butter Market and who could ALL have benefited from its intrinsic value.

Regardless, this is clearly a decision the council are happy with - and happy to live with for the next 99 years - as they obviously feel no review of the decision is necessary.

We’re still happy to hear the opinions of the people who will benefit the least from this decision - the local consumers and producers of Chichester.

On Tuesday April 22nd, I sent a document to the Observer containing an overview of the key elements of the Baker and Bond proposal and including four of the food producer comments we have recently received. You can download a pdf copy of the document here: Local producers support a Toll Market.

Not only are local consumers and producers obviously unhappy with the current decision - as can be seen in the recent press and in comments on the blog - but I am told that a letter was signed en masse by Chichester residents and sent to the Council in time for the Finance Committee’s last meeting on 1^st April 2008. The minutes of this meeting remain as yet unpublished so there’s no way of knowing how the letter was received. However, among other things the letter said:

Chichester City Council has made a serious error of judgement in its choice of development partner for the Butter Market and has underestimated the strength of feeling within the local community.

It finished with this parting shot:

Such an important decision should have been considered fully by the whole council and we ask you to think again before it is too late.

With consumers and small, medium, and larger local food producers all now prepared to air their views independently, I keenly await next week’s Observer article which, I am told, will reveal the full story about how the majority of really do feel about the Council’s choice of development partner.

If I have gauged your feelings correctly and the response is generally negative, it can only be a matter of time before a review process is put in place and Chichester once again has a chance of seeing a Toll Market take its rightful place at the heart of the city for the mutual benefit of local consumers and producers, as well as being a place for the community to enjoy with pride.

Here’s why.

Having taken time out to reflect on the decision made by the Council regarding the modernisation of our Chichester Butter Market, having studied the process that led to that decision, and having listened to the feedback from our local tax payers, producers and consumers alike, I now feel that it would be a great shame not to ask whether the “Full Council” would have made the same decision. Given the amount of negative feeling expressed to our team about the current plans for this prestigious building, I must assume that the full Council would be more truly representative of the broader taxpaying public in Chichester.

This is why I’m asking local residents to express their views in writing to the paper - and as comments on the blog here - during the coming weeks,. This will help us to gauge what local taxpayers truly want to see. Do they want their building restored as a local trading centre for a wide range of local produce and so protect 200 years of history, as well as its existing tenants? Or, by way of contrast, do they want to see the building used as a simple shell for modern retailers to use when occupancy rates for such retail space is in severe decline?

Based on the conversations I have been having throughout the city and its surrounding area, I believe that the majority of taxpayers are not in favour of the current decision. So, I call upon the Mayor to support a special resolution seeking to have the decision reviewed by the full council. This will allow them the time to reflect on the true majority of taxpayer views and, I hope, lead to the recent decision being overturned.

Of course, I realise that my perception may be wrong about the level of support for our own plan, which was designed to deliver broader stability to our rural economy. What I am still certain of, however, is that our plan would see this historic site restored to its former glory as the beating heart of our city. The result? Local producers, local consumers, and local taxpayers all benefit.

Do you agree? Please let me know. Let the Observer know. Above all, let the council know.

You can download a pdf copy of my Open Letter to Mayor or read it on-line here. The Observer is on-line here.

With this in mind, and on further reflection, we have decided to take time out to reflect on how and why the council chose to appoint Orion - “without any dissent” - as the chosen developer of the historic Butter Market site and rejected our proposal.
We would like to thank you all for your support over the last few months and we wish you all a happy and successful New Year.

The council’s recent decision regarding the redevelopment of the Chichester Butter Market has left us bitterly disappointed. Our proposal was openly supported by The Chichester Chamber of Commerce, the Chichester Society, Natwest Bank, the Royal Bank Of Scotland, the two largest organic producers in the Chichester area, many smaller local growers and local fisherman, the existing tenants,and numerous residents. We feel it offered the best combination of financial returns for the council, a variety of quality local produce for Chichester’s residents, and a fairer deal for local traders and producers.

What we find most disappointing, however, is that the council’s decision was based on what appears to be a flawed evaluation process. DTZ had been appointed to examine the separate proposals and recommend that which best met the council’s brief. Had our proposal been defeated by a rival who offered more to Chichester, then we could have simply licked our wounds and looked forward to a sympathetic restoration of the Butter Market. This is not the case.

The results of the public consultation phase were never publicised, and it is our belief there was no fit and proper collection of essential financial information about the developers and their proposals. In recent exchanges with DTZ, it is clear to us that many aspects of our proposal were either overlooked or misunderstood. As a result, we feel that the council has been ill-advised and there would have been a different outcome to the process had DTZ carried out their duty with the broader interests of  local tax payers and the people of Chichester in mind

Stephen Baker and Derek Bond

Our plan for the Chichester Butter Market involves re-introducing a tolling scheme for local producers of food. What does this mean for the local community? For a start, it helps protect the local rural environment, local consumers, and local producers from the ravages of food chain destruction. On top of that, we’ll create a flexible space suitable for existing and new retailers to present great value but high quality goods. And our smaller festival sites will let start-up retailers and those with seasonal offerings gain a foothold on the ‘high street’ on affordable terms.

Both Derek and I are passionate about the Butter Market’s past and we remain extremely optimistic about its vital role in the community for many years to come. We hope that, as Chichester prepares to celebrate 200 years of a great market, its citizens are as passionate as we are about providing a sustainable future for the historic building. Let us know what you think by leaving a comment below. We are keen to hear what fellow citizens think should be done with the Butter Market and what they would like to see in the market.

A select committee of the council is due to make a final decision on the future of the Butter Market by the end of November. It has four bids to choose from. We believe ours is the only real “community option” and we would love to have your support.