Did you remember last Friday that it was the fourth Friday in the month? No, nor did I, until I saw the banner flag advertising the Farmers Market in Parliament Street and followed its guidance into Shambles Market.

York Farmers Market used to be my favourite place to find lunch on the fourth Friday of the month, when I would browse the stalls in search of something to eat and stock up on the kind of local produce you just can't find in the supermarkets. But that was in the days when it was in Parliament Street and I would see the stalls on my way into work.

This time, I had completely forgotten about it until I saw the banner. More, when I arrived in Shambles Market the only stalls in sight were the regulars, leather goods, books, clothes, vegetables on offer. There was no farmers market to be seen. It wasn't until I went further in that I found what I was after, tucked away at the back next to the rear of Shambles shops and the new food court in the corner. Had I been a tourist and not a local, I would probably have decided I had gone the wrong way and turned round. No wonder there were barely a handful of customers and the few stallholders didn't look happy.

The contrast with the Farmers Market I visited the Sunday before couldn't have been starker. I was in the Home Counties in a small commuter town. They closed off a main street in their centre and lined it with stalls. As soon as it opened it was busy with buyers besieging every stall and a long queue forming at the main fish stall. A nearby church ran a continual relay of hot drinks for the stallholders. As we wended our way homeward, we passed a stream of people heading towards the market. All this was in a town with a population of less than 30,000 surrounded by four bigger towns with bigger shopping centres and their own markets all within ten miles north, south, east and west.

York has a population of 200,000 plus four million visitors every year all looking for souvenirs and true Yorkshire produce and lies in the middle of some of the best farming land in the country. The nearest town of any size is at least ten miles away, and if you are talking about a decent shopping centre, you are talking 25 miles plus. York should be a nailed on certainty for one of the best Farmers Markets in the country. Instead so far this year, we are talking about a token presence.

If I was a farmer or a local producer looking for customers I would think twice about taking a stall in York. Judging by the number of customers last Friday, I would struggle to meet the cost of transporting my goods to York, let alone the rent of the stall. I may well look elsewhere, such as Northallerton, Easingwold, Harrogate, Malton, Skipton, Richmond, the list goes on and on. Why would I come to York?

The fate of York Farmers Market is yet another success for that small group of people who believe they alone know what is best for York and won't listen to anyone else. They have decided that Parliament Street needs to be clear of everything so they can hold big grandiose festivals there. So Farmers Market had to move. But Farmers Market is itself a monthly festival of food and produce that promotes local small businesses. So please, whoever decided to hide Farmers Market away in a hard-to-find corner, get out of your office, listen to local people and businesses, and restore it to Parliament Street.