Mart site could be used for housing.

(From The Northern Echo)

Byline: HELEN MILLER

HOUSES could be built on an auction mart site which closed after the foot-andmouth crisis hit Wear Valley.

Bishop Auckland Auction Mart ceased trading in 2001 as the foot and mouth epidemic tightened its grip on the region.

The crisis and a change in livestock laws meant it was no longer possible to hold the mart's weekly Wednesday sales and the site never re-opened.

Outline planning permission has since been given to demolish the buildings on the site to make way for housing.

But Darlington Farmers Auction Mart, which owns the site, has filed a further application to make …