MARKET traders are logging on to social media to attract young shoppers to their stalls.

Following a meeting with Wigan Council, Leigh market traders have launched a Facebook page to advertise their stalls.

The page, which was launched last week, has already had more than 150 likes and traders are hoping that by being online they can increase trade.

Glenn Furnival who owns Under the Fishman market stall said: "We recently had a meeting with the council about what we can do to push things forward for the next 12 months and what improvements we can make.

"The average age of the market customers is getting pretty old and what we want to do is try and get in a younger audience to come and shop here.

"We have been talking about this for a long time and the fact is everyone is on Facebook these days, so the idea is that once we have it properly up and running with all the stalls on it traders can advertise weekly offers and deals and just try and push it to the younger people.

"Hopefully once we are properly running on Facebook we can move on to Twitter as well.

"It's all about trying new things to attract people and I think as stall holders we all need to try a little bit harder.

"There's no way the market will close but it's about trying to push ourselves forward to be sustainable for the next 30 years not just the next five years."

In a meeting held in the market last month, Wigan Council revealed the market was £65,000 in arrears with some traders saying they were struggling to pay their rent due to a decline in trade caused by construction of the guided bus way.

Mr Furnival, who is currently in charge of the Facebook page added: "Trade is down all over the country but we took a big drop when the construction of the new bus lane started.

"We have never fully recovered from that so now we need to try and do things ourselves to improve it.

"I'm hoping more stalls will take more interest and put themselves forward to be on the committee, because the fact is we need more support from people working on the market if we want to be successful in the things we are trying to do."