A LEADING expert on street design is to outline ideas for improving Malton’s town centre for pedestrians and motorists at a top level seminar on Friday.

The public event, being held at The Palace Cinema in Yorkersgate, has been organised by the Fitzwilliam Estate to help solve the year-long conflict between shoppers and the bottle-neck traffic system.

Ben Hamilton-Baillie, an architect and head of a Bristol-based consultancy specialising in urban design and movement, will put forward his ideas for the town based on work he has done in various parts of Britain.

Roddy Bushell, the estate manager, said: “There has been much talk recently about pedestrianisation in Malton’s Market Place. The loss of cars from all or part of it will be of concern to businesses keen to attract customers. On the other hand, sometime in the last century, did we hand over too much control of the Market Place to the highway engineer?”

Mr Bushell expects Mr Hamilton-Baillie to come forward with “radical new approaches” for Malton.

He said: “He has some and new interesting ideas and the seminar will provide an opportunity to learn about an alternative that may achieve the benefits of pedestrianisation without excluding all traffic from the Market Place.”

Mr Bushell said he had asked Mr Hamilton-Baillie to come to Malton to enable the Estate to get more information about pedestrians and traffic in town centres. “It seemed sensible to open up his seminar to everyone with an interest, so that Malton can have an informed debate on the subject of pedestrianisation,” he added.

However, leading campaigner for pedestrianisation in Malton, Coun Howard Keal, says he is critical of the “shared space” idea.

He said: “It is a nightmare agenda. It is a seriously bad idea that falls way short of the pedestrianisation we need to improve Malton Market Place.”

Coun Keal added: “It removes the distinction between the road and pavements creating a direct conflict between cars and walkers. “That is not my idea of creating a comfortable environment in which shoppers can relax and enjoy public open space.

“Shared space relies on heavy flows of pedestrians to slow traffic which we just don’t have for large parts of the day.”

A better alternative, he said, would be to ban traffic using Saville Street, at least on market days and possibly permanently, which would improve the Market Place situation.

The seminar will start at 2.15pm on Friday and will follow a lunchtime event on high speed broadband in Malton being held at the Milton Rooms from 11am-2pm on the same day.

Anyone interested in attending either of the events is asked to ring the Estate office on 01653 692849.