An expert from the United States has warned about the dangers of turning Britain into a 'drive-through society' - and ruining our traditional market towns.

Kennedy Lawson-Smith, director of the US urban renewal programme Main Street, gives her warning in a new report out today entitled Market Towns: Options For A Share In The Future.

The report has been published by Action for Market Towns, the campaigning charity which focused on the problems of Yorkshire's country towns when it held a seminar in Tadcaster last November. In the report, Ms Lawson-Smith warns: "American town centres have been devastated by out-of-town shopping. Please don't let the UK go do down the road that the US has. Don't ruin the town centres."

Another contributor, Corinne Swain, director of Arup Economics and Planning, claims the car is the greatest threat to the future prosperity of Britain's country towns.

She says car ownership is growing faster in small towns than in the rest of the country, and residents are taking their custom out of town rather than spending money locally.

This means that although the population of market towns is growing, local economies are not benefiting and may even be in decline.

She says in the report: "The challenge is to retain as much as possible of the new inhabitants' and companies' expenditure within the town, rather than letting it leak to competing centres."

Suggestions contained in the report, sponsored by the Rural Development Commission, include encouraging a wider range of shops and specialist stores, such as craft outlets, and turning over empty premises to new uses.

It also advocates improving market places, converting derelict sites into housing, introducing 'green' schemes, organising regular festivals and developing funding partnerships.

Peter Lakey, of the Rural Development Commission's regional office in York, said: "We have recognised for some time that market towns are in decline for a number of reasons."

Referring to the new report from Action for Market Towns, he said: "This is something we are very much behind because we want to keep traditional market towns alive."

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