WITH my husband, I visited your beautiful, historic and interesting town on a very hot day.

We found a parking space for the disabled opposite the public lavatories and prepared ourselves to go and visit the town, buy some lunch and do some shopping in the unusual shops we noticed. None of this happened. I walk very slowly on two sticks following a knee replacement operation in November 2014, and on May 12, 2015 a hip replacement, so please imagine, clearly, my anxiety and extreme dismay when I found the door of the disabled lavatory firmly locked. On the door were incomprehensible (to us) instructions as to how to open the door, something about radar keys and an unreachable (we tried) telephone number. We are complete newcomers to North Yorkshire, about to buy a house in Ripon. No one in nearby shops was able to help us regarding the procedure to use this lavatory, although they deplored the situation.

I ask, what is the point of having a lavatory for the disabled in a central position of your town, if disabled people, already restricted in many ways, are unable to use it? A beautiful town like Malton, clearly busy and prosperous, and very dependent on visitors, can surely do better? And it ought to be ashamed.

E Diana Prowse, The Old Bakery, Helperby