Keys auctioneers have scotched rumours that their traditional Aylsham Monday sales are about to be scrapped.

Changes to the pattern of sales in the new year prompted calls to the EDP and its sister paper the North Norfolk News this week from worried auction-goers who feared next Monday's auction would be the last.

But Phil Barker, a senior partner at Keys, has described such reports as 'absolutely and utterly untrue.'

'Unfortunately people have completely got the wrong end of the stick,' he said.

Mr Barker explained that next Monday's outside table-top sale of deadstock would be the last weekly one before an experimental series of monthly sales began in the new year. But the normal weekly auction of fruit and vegetables, furniture and cars would be completely unaffected.

For the foreseeable future the deadstock sales would be combined with Keys' commercial sales, usually held three or four times a year, and would be held monthly, indoors, on the last Monday of each month, beginning in January.

Mr Barker said in recent months there had been fewer items brought in for the weekly deadstock sales - including tins of tools, old-fashioned petrol cans and garden forks.

Changing tastes and times meant that where such items had once seen bids of �10 or �15 a lot, they now sometimes struggled to attract a bid of �5.

'It's time for a change,' he said. 'We are doing this almost as an experiment. When summer comes we may get more coming in again and we will re-appraise the situation. We do have the ability to be adaptable.' Commercial sales include stock from liquidated companies.