TELEVISION presenter and writer Selina Scott has joined campaigners fighting to save Malton’s Wentworth Street car park from a supermarket development.

The former newsreader, who lives near Ampleforth, is urging Ryedale District Council to re-think its controversial plans to sell the site.

About 60 traders, residents and campaigners joined Ms Scott in Malton Market Place on Saturday as she spoke out.

Ms Scott questioned why the council wants to sell the prime town centre site to raise capital when it already has £8 million in its reserves.

And she said another supermarket in Malton could have a devastating effect on its smaller traders.

“Large supermarkets in a small market town such as Malton will kill off the present shops by selling a wide range of goods, including meat and clothing,” she said.

Ms Scott told the Gazette & Herald this week that she believes an enterprise based on selling Ryedale-produced food could have the opposite effect. To that end, one solution could be for the farmers’ market, which is currently held at the livestock market buildings once a month, to be developed to make it a Yorkshire-wide attraction.

She said: “We could hold back the trend of what is happening nationally in our market towns. It would benefit many local businesses, especially farming.

“Malton is a unique and precious market town.”

Cars are essential in a rural area such as Ryedale, and it follows that parking is essential, she said. Under the present proposals, Malton was “in danger of going the same way as many other market towns in the country”.

To allow a small up-market store such as Waitrose to develop the Fitzwilliam Estate-owned livestock market site would play a key part in regenerating Malton, because, believed, Ms Scott, it would attract new shoppers and visitors to the town centre.

“Why is the council so at war with the Fitzwilliam Estate?” she asked.

Emma Brooksbank, who has been a leading voice in the opposition to the sale of part of the car park for a supermarket, said the march through the town and the packed meeting at Malton School last year had proved the local opposition to the scheme.

“We are convinced that if the car park development goes ahead, it will be by Tesco,” she said.

She said a small Waitrose or Booths store would be a good proposition for the livestock market site, but added: “They won’t come if Tesco goes to the Wentworth Street site.”

Mrs Brooksbank wants Secretary of State for Communities Eric Pickles to make the decision on the supermarket plans.

She said: “This is a very crucial time for Malton. Malton is already demonstrating the Government’s Big Society with its new neighbourhood plan. This is an opportunity to allow people to take control of the town.”

Coun Jason Fitzgerald-Smith, Malton’s mayor, questioned why the car park needed to be sold by the council to raise funds. However, if it was, he believed it could be considered for housing or a hotel. “There is strong feeling in the town against another supermarket.”

He added that traders were strongly opposed because they feared that a giant such as Tesco would sell many of the products found in Malton shops. There were also reports that Asda may extend its store in Norton Road.

He said: “Why has Sainsburys already ruled out developing the Wentworth Street site? They must have realised that it isn’t needed.”

Coun Paul Andrews, a leading opponent of the sale, said: “We are delighted that Selina Scott has come on board because we hope that it will underline to the council the strength of feeling there is locally against the supermarket site and how important this matter is to the town.”

He also believed the final decision should be made by the Government and not by the district authority.

Coun Keith Knaggs, leader of Ryedale District Council, said: “At the moment we have an application from the Fitzwilliam Estate for the livestock market site and expect applications from Holbeck Land, to whom the council is planning to sell Wentworth Street car park, following their consultation exercise, and from Simon Developments for a much larger supermarket in the Pasture Lane-Showfield Lane area.

“The timing of these applications will be decided by the applicants, not the planning authority. I am confident these applications will be decided in accordance with planning law and on the basis of councillors’ views as to what’s best for Malton and Ryedale.”

Tesco told the Gazette & Herald last month that while the company was “always on the look out” for new development opportunities, Malton was at present not one of them.