A COUNTY businessman has revealed his plan to start a permanent indoor market in North Berwick.

Adam Elder, who runs an online photographic library, says he wants to open the market within premises on the town's High Street - which he believes could boost trade and footfall in the town centre.

Already, more than 50 businesses have expressed an interest in his idea.

And the market could be up and running by October as a self-sustaining business of its own.

The 46-year-old, who lives on High Street, told the Courier: "The idea is to give small, independent traders the chance to get their products to market on the high street.

"At the moment, to have your own shop is prohibitive in terms of rents and rates.

"What we intend to do is be able to take over big enough premises so that we can get up to 35 traders under one roof and enable them to rent space at as low as �10 per day.

"This space can be as flexible in terms of space or time as they like." While not naming which premises he had his eyes on at this stage, Mr Elder said that the location of it would mean trade for existing shops would not be lost - but rather boosted.

He intends to run the business under the title 'Why Not?' and have it open for normal business hours.

"At the moment, our numbers are beginning to stack up to eventually where it becomes viable as a business itself," said Mr Elder.

"It's got to stand on its own two feet. It will operate as a profit-making business.

"[We can run it] as long as it effectively washes its face, as we can't afford to do it if it's going to cost us money.

"We've had just over 50 interested traders come to us, so it's looking OK just now.

"North Berwick is a destination town, people come here because it's North Berwick. Of course, it has things like the golf, the seabird centre.

"But we don't want to take business away from existing traders.

"It'll help the traders because it'll bring people here." The idea for the indoor market came after problems experienced by Mr Elder in his own line of work.

He added: "We market photographs of photographers based in Scotland.

"That business works fine but as a sideline, I started making my own furniture. Getting that in front of the customer, for me, was very difficult.

"The internet is great for selling things but getting that product in so that they can see it, touch it, taste it, that is so important."