HEREFORD cattle market marks its 150th birthday next week with only the present to look forward to as Herefordshire Council is still locking horns with landowners over the market's future.

Councillor Charles Mayson, cabinet member for rural regeneration, told the Hereford Times that any deal moving the market to one of six possible sites north of the city is still some way off - but getting closer.

"I'm not prepared to accept an offer for the sake of accepting an offer and negotiations are ongoing," said Coun Mayson.

The council had been hopeful of a £5 million deal being done by June but the deadline shifted indefinitely as talks went on.

Nor are there any plans to mark the market's birthday the way its centenary was saluted.

Richard Grainger, director of Hereford Market Auctioneers, said he wasn't aware of any celebrations next Tuesday - a stark contrast to 1956 when an MP spoken of as a future Prime Minister was the special guest and prize Hereford cattle were paraded through the city streets that their ancestors were once sold in.

Back then, Hereford was one of the biggest centres for stock in Britain with an annual throughput of nearly 300,000 animals and a turnover of £5 million.

There was even excited talk of an equivalent to the Edgar Street grid. The city's all-powerful markets committee had pitched a plan for a corn exchange, a major hotel, an office block, a restaurant and even an on-site abattoir.

A century before, cattle had been sold in Hereford's streets. The purpose-built market, opened in 1856 on its Newmarket Street site and revamped in 1947, was to change all that.

Guest speaker Enoch Powell MP, a rising star of parliament at the time, praised Hereford as one of the nation's greatest livestock centres, the city's dignitaries turned out in style for the unveiling of a plaque to mark the day.

Fifty years later, the very need for a Hereford cattle market is questioned in the debate over its move to a new site. Supporters say a market still has a practical and symbolic value to Hereford and Herefordshire.

Others want the money spent on sorting the city's notorious traffic troubles.

Anyone willing to suggest cattle being sold on the streets again?