Figures for the door counters at Widnes Market look set reach the 2.5 million visits by the end of March, another milestone in the rejuvenation of the market which had seen a flattening of visitor numbers in previous years. This year has seen on average over 48,000 visits per week, bucking the national trend. That is more people than watch Manchester City each week or four times the capacity of the Stobart Stadium, Stobart every week. This equates to the population of Stirling or almost twice that of Bangor! The projected figures re-enforce the fact that the market plays an important part in the local community, both for value and as an important place to meet.

We think Mary Tissington's amazing.  She's just celebrated her 80th birthday and still works on her the family market stall, often getting up at 3.30am and working through to teatime. Quite rightly, she decided that after 60 years on the stall she ought to be taking things a bit easy now so she decided to... take Fridays off! - just for a few weeks mind until the weather improves at least.

More counterfeit goods worth a massive £1m have been seized, this time at Wembley Market.  Stalls were targeted by Tokyngton Safer Neighbourhoods Team in a joint operation with Brent and Harrow trading standards. Disreputable traders were having a disastrous impact on honest market stallholders at the market.