Hi Tracey
What sort of fleeces are you after? And how many and for what purpose? (This year and next.)
We're just over the border, about 20 miles into England (but still north of Hadrian's Wall
) and have a commercial flock of predominantly Texel and Charollais cross ewes, some of whom have really lovely fleeces for spinning / felting.
If I knew someone would want to buy X number then I could keep them back from the main clip. If X is large, I'd need to tell the Wool Board, which is fine, but if it's just a few I don't think they'd care. I'm allowed to keep some back for home use, and did keep about 9 back this year, for myself and other spinners. I still have plenty of that available if you were wanting some of that.
And there are farmers and smallholders locally with some interesting breeds (Shetlands, Jacobs, Wensleydales, Zwartbles, Hebrideans, to name just a few) who would be happy to keep some or all of their fleeces back for crafting use, if they knew what and how many was required.