DENYS TOWNSEND, chairman of Malton & Norton Business in Action and a retailer in Malton, puts the business community’s case in the debate on the future of Malton

IF Keith Knaggs (Party lines, April 11) believes that he is taking a carefully- reasoned and statesmanlike approach to what he chooses to call “the Malton supermarket wars”, he does so through the soft focus of rose-tinted spectacles and a highlyselective version of events.

There is, however, merit in being constructive, with all interested parties working together to achieve the economic future that Malton deserves.

Crucial in this is the active participation and continued commitment of independent traders. It is they who will deliver the diversity of the shopping experience and thereby, ultimately, the preservation of Malton’s character, the town’s unspoiled architectural heritage and charm, all of which are important for tourism.

Those traders, in common with thousands of townspeople, have overwhelmingly made clear their concerns about the superstore which Keith Knaggs’s colleagues on the planning committee have just decided to allow, and their equally-strong favour for the alternative scheme for the regeneration of the livestock market as a mixed retail development with parking – which the committee has refused.

The danger with this development is the domino effect on the high street of loss of turnover and then the likelihood of failure causing a slow but irreversible decline of Malton as we know it and love it.

It would, however, be naïve to consider that these decisions are the final ones. Both are open to challenge in different ways, and we can expect those steps to be actively pursued, as they should be if representative local democracy is to have real meaning.

The decisions came hot on the heels of the Government’s response to the Mary Portas review into the health of the high street.

In an introduction to the paper published only last month, Prime Minister David Cameron wrote: “For our high streets to thrive they must offer something new and different. But for this to happen it is local people who must take control, developing the vision for the future of their high streets and putting their energy and enthusiasm into making it a reality.

“This is why our wider response to Mary Portas’s review is designed not to prescribe to communities what they should do – but to give them the power to decide what’s right for their town centres.”

Before bowing to Mr Knaggs’s wish that we all now compliantly and conveniently move on, it is as well to reflect that it is more important, much more important, that the decisions that shape Malton’s future are the right ones, not the quickest or the ones that yield the biggest immediate profit.

Malton is not to be sold off, asset-stripped, for the sake of a temporary financial advantage for Ryedale.

Nevertheless, Mr Knaggs has woken up to something that we in Malton, traders, town council, and the Fitzwilliam Estate have been telling him and others for years.

He now writes: “What the council can do to help Ryedale’s market towns is to try to bring in more footfall, and the proposed free parking at Wentworth Street … [is] hugely important for Malton.”

Excuse me? How long has his council been operating this car park? Best part of 40 years. And is it free? We welcome his recognition, that free parking is important to Malton’s footfall.

That being so, why is it not already free? Why not make it free, now, today?

It might then be used to something near capacity, by those whose feet might fall on Malton’s ‘cobbled’ streets, instead of languishing largely unused because of charges that turn those feet elsewhere, to where they are made more welcome.

Malton’s high street traders and shop owners want to provide something new and different, and while we have the commercial vision, energy and enthusiasm, we do not have the control to make it a reality.

For openers, let’s hear how much of the expected £5 million from the car park sale will be invested in Malton to improve – ahead of its superstore opening – the links to the town centre.

All the council’s reports supporting the Wentworth Street development quote these links as needed to enable the continued viability of Malton. Come on Mr Knaggs; tell us how the Council will make this happen.

You could start NOW.

Whatever the outcome, we in the business community are ready to engage with Ryedale District Council, just as we always have been, and we look forward in future to notice being taken of what we say.

Our livelihoods depend on our businesses. And Malton depends on us.