Madam, I was delighted at the success of The ART Christmas Market on Sunday, and firstly I would like to offer my thanks to all the volunteers, traders, reindeers, entertainers, bands and choirs, who made the day so memorable, and to Ross Town Council for helping to fund this event. You all helped to bring hustle and bustle into the town with a real Christmassy vibe and lots of smiling faces.

I do feel that Ross lends itself to this sort of event so well and really shows the community spirit that is so often lacking. Ross is an historic market town and I have long felt that we need to do more events and markets if we are to continue to put Ross back on the map, just look at the success of the ART May Fayre earlier in the year.

On a recent trip to Hay-on-Wye with Cllr Atkinson to see what is working there, we thought we would love to see a monthly market festival in Ross. Cllr Atkinson discussed an option for taking over control of the markets from Herefordshire council and that this was something the Town Council were exploring which would give us more scope to do things better and how we see fit in Ross.

One use for the Portas money that the town recently received, could be to buy uniformed smart looking matching market stalls that could help make a real feature of the markets again. We could maybe have some sort of flexible staging for acoustic sets, jazz bands, brass bands etc to play whilst the markets are on, with a mix of street theatre and something for the children.

This approach could start to make a real feature of our markets and town again and if marketed correctly outside of Ross, could bring in a regular supply of extra tourists and shoppers.

I would be very interested in seeing if this is something that people think would work well for the town, perhaps this is something that you could poll?

Richard Mayo, Ross.