A MINEHEAD fishmonger fears his business could flounder after a Devon-based fish van set up pitch at the weekly local farmers' market.

Adrian Cobb, who runs Out Of The Blue in partnership with Helen Lloyd, has seen takings tumble by more than 50 per cent every Friday since the Brixham fishmonger arrived at the West Somerset Farmers' Market.

He said he had been accused of "sour grapes" after complaining about the non-local seller and said the market organisers had lost sight of the purpose of a farmers' market.

"If he came from Minehead, Watchet or somewhere else around here I wouldn't have any issues with it - there's guys there from the trout farm and that's fine because they're local," he said.

"But this guy is from Brixham and for a local farmers' market to be actively helping to take money out of the local economy is ridiculous."

Mr Cobb said "everyone was jumping up and down about it" - a fact borne out by the Free Press letters' page both today and in recent weeks.

He added: "Fridays are traditionally the busiest fish day and this van is literally taking the rent money out of my pocket.

"There's not a lot of money around anyway and if it continues, the chances are we'll have to close."

But Penny Webber, wife of market chairman Roger who was unable to comment directly to the Free Press, said she believed the van was bringing more people and trade into the town.

"It is unfortunate if it is having an impact on the other business but he's also working hard to make a living," she said.

"His fish is as local as you can get around here and there are loads of other places to buy fish.

"If anyone in Minehead wants to do it they would be welcome to come along, but nobody has.

"He's very popular and people should ask themselves why he's doing so well."

Asked how a Brixham-based business qualified to trade under the market's local produce from with 30-miles rule, Mrs Webber said: "It was a committee decision about the fish man.

"I'm not sure why this is so controversial. It's as fresh as possible and he meets all the requirements.

"People have a choice, they don't have to use him, they can use the other guy."

She said the market also sold vegetables and meat, both of which could be bought elsewhere in the town, and she could not understand why the fish seller had been singled out.

But Free Press reader Ian Forrest said opposition to the mobile van was solely because the owner was not local and ran a large wholesale fish company.

"Our local fishmonger is a one man band who is struggling to keep his business going and is losing business on the prime day of the week.

"The [mobile van] does not pay any rates to the local council whereas the local fishmonger does and any profits he makes leave the local economy as opposed to the local man," he said.

Another reader, John Dixon of Minehead, added: "By no stretch of the imagination can Brixham be described as local. His profit is taken back to Brixham and he makes no tangible contribution to the local economy.

"Our local fishmonger's shop, on the other hand, sells locally farmed fish, the produce of local smokeries and fish sustainably line caught along our own coast.

"He pays full business rates and as a member of the local community his modest profit is recirculated in West Somerset."

It is not the first time the market committee has courted controversy after kicking out local baker Sylvia Jeromson last year.

Sylvia retaliated by opening her own thriving business in Minehead after claiming she had been told her produce was not local enough and her Watchet business provided more than five per cent of her annual income, which was against market rules.