Romsey has been promised more specialists street markets.

Borough leader, Ian Carr, made the announcement while setting out the council's aims for the coming year. Mr Carr said: "We will have more specialised markets in both Romsey and Andover."

Afterwards Mr Carr said he hoped the Continental-style markets would encourage more people into Romsey and Andover town centres. "We want to try different ways to attract people into our towns," said Mr Carr.

A four-day Continental street market with around 40 stalls was held in Andover last week and Romsey's first continental street market will be held during the late Spring bank holiday weekend on Sunday, May 29th, and Monday, May 30th.

This will be at the town's Broadwater Road car park and will be run by Euromarkets. "We will see how this one goes and if it's successful will look at doing another around Christmas time. We are looking at holding a craft market and a gardeners' market in Romsey next year," said Romsey town centre manager Christine Cole.

There are a number of Sunday farmers' markets lined up for Romsey this summer and autumn. These include one on July 17th, another on September 18th and the final one of the year on November 20th.

Bradbeers boss Greg Davies, whose company is licensed to operate Romsey's thrice-weekly markets welcomed plans to stage Continental markets.

"I think it's a good idea. Anything that brings more people into the town must be a good thing," said Mr Davies, who is desperately keen to get a Saturday food market up and running.

Bradbeers is currently running a fruit and vegetable stall on Saturdays after the original stallholder decided to withdraw from Saturday trading. Mr Davies added that he's planning to introduce a wider-range of food stalls at Saturday markets.