Bad news from Whitby. Alliance Fish is throwing in the towel after years of running the fish market.
Too few boats, too few catches. Alliance also run the town’s best fishmonger The Whitby Catch and are shutting up shop there, too.
Just over the street from the daily fish auction hall which in turn was alongside the quay, the Whitby Catch could count in fish yards not food miles. And the fish auction, as anyone who got up early enough to witness it knows, is a truly weird and wonderful spectacle. Punters like me never understood it let alone bought anything but it’s been a vital and historic link in the Yorkshire fish chain. The council say they are committed to keeping the fish market going. Let’s hope so. The future of Whitby as a proper fishing port is hanging by a thread.