United Kingdom-The Smithfield Club.

UNITED KINGDOM-ROYAL SMITHFIELD CLUB.

PLANS have been announced for a South West Winter Fair, staged at Derek Mead’s Sedgemoor Auction Centre, near Bridgwater.

The Royal Smithfield Club joined forces with the Bath and West Society and staged two Winter Fairs at Shepton Mallet after the Smithfield Show left Earls Court.But the link has been severed and another forged with RASE to launch a new-look Smithfield event at Stoneleigh, also in December, with the club underlining the central location of the Warwickshire site.The new South West Winter Fair is being backed by Sedgemoor Auction Centre’s on-site auctioneers, Greenslade Taylor Hunt, whose spokesman Rob Venner, said: "We can understand the reasons for the Smithfield moving away from Shepton Mallet, because the site certainly isn’t the easiest to get to. But, if you are a farmer in Cornwall, Devon or Dorset, neither is Stoneleigh."Having the Smithfield staged in the Westcountry was a real boost for the region, but now it has gone it has left a vacuum – and one we think we are ideally suited to fill. "The great merit of Sedgemoor Auction Centre is the fact that it overlooks a motorway junction, which is why buyers and sellers from all parts of the country are now trading here – and that’s partly the reason why we are consistently notching up record prices."We’re convinced the South West Winter Fair is going to be a huge attraction, not just for farmers within the region, but for many from much farther afield."The event will have classes for cattle, calves, sheep, pigs and poultry, as well as hosting a new South West Sausage Championship for the region’s butchers. There will be a large farmers’ market, while the centre’s huge exhibition hall will house trade and sales stands.Sponsors of the cattle championship are Fromevale and rural accountants Old Mill.