BLACKBURN market traders have little or nothing to fear from the French market soon to be held in Church Street.

My family and I visited one of these three-day French markets last month in Lowestoft. Never again!

None of the stalls selling meat or sausages had any refrigeration and the produce was piled up, completely uncovered in full blazing sun, giving easy access to all the local insects.

There were no hand-washing facilities on any of the stalls and the means of cleaning implements we saw was on a stall selling cooked sausage. It was a bucket of greasy, cold water in which the stallholder swished his fork after serving a customer.

Most of the stallholders had little grasp of English. At one stall selling 'exotic breads' we asked what was in one of the loaves. The reply was '£1.50' and the loaf was put in a bag and held out. We bought it, but regretted it. It was so stale.

In France, bread is baked twice a day and eaten very fresh. This market was selling bread on Sunday which had been brought across on the ferry on Thursday. Who knows when it had come out of the oven.

From one stall we bought a sausage brioche -- a sort of bread roll containing a long thin smoked sausage. These cost us £2 each but, unfortunately, the bread was so stale and the sausage so burnt that we threw them away.

There was a stall selling nothing but garlic. It was twice the price that you would pay normally in this country. Another stall sold only tomatoes. These looked beautiful but were expensive and tasteless. In fact, all the fruit and vegetables on offer was much dearer than we usually pay.

Having been once bitten by 'the French market experience' we will not be caught again. My advice is, go and have a look at how a French market operates and then go to our local shops or market to do the buying.

PETER DUERDEN, Countess Road, Lower Darwen, Blackburn.

BLACKBURN market traders have little or nothing to fear from the French market soon to be held in Church Street.

My family and I visited one of these three-day French markets last month in Lowestoft. Never again!

None of the stalls selling meat or sausages had any refrigeration and the produce was piled up, completely uncovered in full blazing sun, giving easy access to all the local insects.

There were no hand-washing facilities on any of the stalls and the means of cleaning implements we saw was on a stall selling cooked sausage.

It was a bucket of greasy, cold water in which the stallholder swished his fork after serving a customer.

Most of the stallholders had little grasp of English. At one stall selling 'exotic breads' we asked what was in one of the loaves.

The reply was '£1.50' and the loaf was put in a bag and held out. We bought it, but regretted it. It was so stale.

In France, bread is baked twice a day and eaten very fresh. This market was selling bread on Sunday which had been brought across on the ferry on Thursday.

Who knows when it had come out of the oven.

From one stall we bought a sausage brioche -- a sort of bread roll containing a long thin smoked sausage. These cost us £2 each but, unfortunately, the bread was so stale and the sausage so burnt that we threw them away.

There was a stall selling nothing but garlic. It was twice the price that you would pay normally in this country. Another stall sold only tomatoes.

These looked beautiful but were expensive and tasteless. In fact, all the fruit and vegetables on offer was much dearer than we usually pay.

Having been once bitten by 'the French market experience' we will not be caught again. My advice is, go and have a look at how a French market operates and then go to our local shops or market to do the buying.

PETER DUERDEN, Countess Road, Lower Darwen, Blackburn.