LIVESTOCK markets as we know them today, and certainly their locations, are as much a reflection of the development of the transport networks that service them as of the areas in which livestock are produced.
Many livestock marts can trace the history of their locations to the development of the railway networks in the middle of the 19th century.
Over the past 50 years or so, the influence of the railways on livestock markets has been replaced by that of the developing road network of trunk routes and motorways. In recent years, the influence of this development can be seen in the sites chosen for many of the large combined livestock market and agribusiness centres that have been developed, many of which re-located from older town centre sites that were near railways.
The earliest form of livestock market often co-existed with locations where people came together to buy and sell the essentials of everyday life. In many cases this was in a market town, from which many livestock markets still operate. Such towns often had a royal charter, granted by the monarch and regarded as a highly-valued privilege.
Livestock would usually be brought to the market area of such venues, tethered or corralled in temporary pens and exchanged through "private treaty" haggling between buyers and sellers. This method of trading was gradually replaced around the middle of the 19th century by the auction method that is familiar today where an auctioneer takes open cry bids.
Purpose-built market structures were erected in towns and cities across the country to accommodate this method of selling, with Hawick Auction Mart claiming to be the first such facility in Britain, having been established in the late 1840s.
By the mid 19th century, railways were fast being built to connect the many market towns and cities that had been the centre of rural market activity for centuries. The railway made it possible for the first time for large numbers of animals to be easily assembled and shipped to other destinations. They enabled buyers of finished stock destined for slaughter at abattoirs in the major towns and cities, to source them from greater distances.
Before the advent of railways, the movement of livestock was only possible through driving them on foot between destinations. However, this did not prevent long distance movement of large numbers of livestock over a countrywide network of drove roads that had been established for centuries.
By 1950 the British rail network was carrying 1.75m cattle, 3.5m sheep, 330,000 pigs and 64,000 calves every year.
Although the railways allowed the movement of large numbers of animals away from a market, at first many were still moved by drovers over local distances of between five and 10 miles to the auction markets.
As road transport was developed, local livestock transport companies with specialist livestock lorries (small compared to the large articulated vehicles of today) began to move more and more livestock to and from the livestock marts. These were supplemented by farmers gradually acquiring their own transport, which has since developed into the use of the ubiquitous 4x4 vehicle plus trailer.
Hauling of livestock by road has worked reasonably well until recently, when an ever-increasing burden of red tape that constricts drivers threatens the system. Farmers and hauliers have to be trained and pass tests to prove that they are competent to transport animals.
The main problem today is the stipulation that livestock hauliers can only drive a maximum of 90 hours in a fortnight, or run the risk of hefty fines. During the hectic autumn sale season there aren't enough livestock hauliers to move all the animals in the limited number of driving hours they are allowed.
Livestock haulage is specialist work and not everyone can drive a livestock transporter. That has led to a shortage of qualified young drivers,
with the average age of livestock hauliers now reckoned to be 55.
Worse, many haulage firms only employ enough staff to cope with their regular workload, rather than the burst of activity at the autumn sales.
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