LAST week, the Malton Food Town team and I visited Welcome to Yorkshire’s offices in Leeds. A great organisation, great meeting and a superb building.

If you haven’t seen the Dry Sand Foundry where they are based it is an impressive reminder of how old buildings can be transformed for the modern day.

The old industrial shell is now the perfect backdrop to their groovy offices with bright media types walking about, lattes in hand, ideas frothing out of them taking Yorkshire forward.

Anyway, all of this was rather shattered when our lovely host, Vikki, exclaimed that she had tried to visit Malton recently, presumably for a well-earned foodie mini break, but couldn’t get a room and went to Harrogate instead.

She had wanted to come for two nights away in a cosy B&B, have good food, visit Castle Howard, walk the North York Moors, perhaps do a cookery course, but there was a problem – no B&Bs. Now having full hotels and full pubs is a good sign for town, but we need more accommodation, and no B&Bs – now that’s just crazy. Where are the B&Bs? Come on Malton.

We’ve got more and more visitors coming into town using the restaurants, cafés, shops, Malton Cookery School and yet there are very few B&Bs. This is a huge opportunity for everyone.

According to figures on the district council website, Ryedale welcomes 4.7 million visitors each year with the visitor economy of Ryedale worth £278m per year.

Malton is making the most of this too. There is the Food Lovers Festival, Book Festival, Cajun Festival, Festival of Cycling, monthly food markets, cookery school classes and more. There is no time like the present to open a B&B and tap into this growing visitor economy. And these B&Bs would also benefit from events from other towns.

I know as the director of the Talbot Hotel how we benefited from people visiting the Railway at Wartime Weekend who couldn’t stay in Pickering itself. A Malton B&B could benefit from all of this too.

What is also great news for future B&B owners is that the market is going their way too. Visitors are more and more opting to use them and why not? Home cooked meals, comfortable beds and a real honest Yorkshire welcome at a great price. Malton could and should be providing more of this.

Anyway, this month in the spirit of food and drink I helped my brothers and sisters press one tonne of apples at my parent’s place. I think we managed to bottle over a 130 bottles.

That evening I enjoyed a fab night at the pride of Malton and Norton awards at the Milton Rooms. A great and positive event and dressed in a smart suit. I hope the fact that I was drenched from head to toe in pulped apples didn’t spoil anyone’s dinner. Not sure I can look at apple sauce ever, ever again.

The next Malton Monthly Food Market takes place on Saturday with chefs from both the Crown and Cushion, in Welburn, and the Ye Old Sun Inn, at Colton, both cooking live.