Should Malton banish the car?

HOWARD Keal stands at the top of Malton Market Place, looking out over St Michael's Church. It is a beautiful old church and would grace any market town in the country. In front of it, however, instead of a courtyard or public square, there is a car park.

"It's just surrounded by cars." says Coun Keal, who is chairman of Ryedale District Council's planning committee. "How much better it would look if people were able to walk around freely and enjoy this as a public open space."

Coun Keal is a man with a vision. He believes the time has come for Malton to take its place in the 21st century - and give the town centre over to pedestrians.

Not all of it, but a substantial part. He would like to see cars banned from both sides of the Market Place - in front of the church and in front of Malton Museum - as well as from 'feeder' streets such as Saville Street and Market Street.

He walks down to the corner where Hoppers, the stationers and booksellers, stands and looks across at the museum. Again, the Market Place is filled with cars. They are parked in the bays along the side of the street - and more are parked in the car park beside the museum.

Imagine what it would be like, Coun Keal says, if all these cars were gone, and in their place was a paved town square, with a few trees for shade, and continental-style caf tables in the summer. "People would be able to appreciate what a beautiful town Malton is," he says.

While there are those who agree and think that banning cars from part of the town centre is the right way forward, others think it would be plain daft.

North Yorkshire County Council is considering three options for improved pedestrian access in the town centre (see panel).

None go as far as Coun Keal would like - but even so, the results of a county council survey reveal townsfolk are split.

Almost half of the people who responded said they would be in favour of improved pedestrian access, while almost 40 per cent would be against it.

When the Evening Press spoke to visitors in the town centre yesterday, most appeared in favour. "It's a brilliant idea," said Jennifer Cooper, a 56-year-old cook from Wensleydale. "My husband is deaf, and his eyesight isn't very good, so he nearly got knocked down by a car in the Market Place. I'm all for pedestrianisation."

The traders whose shops line the Market Place, who would be most directly affected by banning cars, were mostly against.

"If you just want to walk around town that's fine," said Carl Pilmer, who runs soft-furnishing store Stitches. "But what if you want to run a business with customer parking and daily deliveries? Until we sort out the parking in this town, pedestrianising the Market Place is just nonsensical."

So if you ban cars from the town centre, where are people going to park? Many traders, such as Andrew Duncan, manager of Hoppers, point out that they rely on local people parking outside and running into the shop for much of their business.

If parking were stopped or cars prevented from coming into the Market Place, business could be lost.

Coun Keal believes he has the answer. He walks up Finkle Street, and through The Shambles to the cattle market. It's a Thursday, and the market is not in use. It is a huge, empty space. On one side, ranks of metal pens stretch away, on the other side, ranks of wooden pens. A few cars have parked around the edges.

"This is the ace in the hole," says Coun Keal. "Just look at it. What a waste of space."

If the cattle market could be moved, Coun Keal says - not far, just to somewhere else in or near Malton - it would free up a huge area that would make an ideal car park, just seconds from the town centre.

He accepts the cattle market is part of the town's history and it would be a shame to move it. But he thinks the benefits would easily outweigh the disadvantages. "We need to reclaim the streets for the people. There is so much to gain, and so little to lose. At the moment, the car is king. It is time people took back the throne."

Back in the Market Place, not everyone appeared to be convinced. Jayne Scott, assistant manager of Hoppers, looked distinctly dubious.

People parking in the Market Place and popping into the shop were an important part of business, she said. She wasn't even convinced the Market Place would look better if cars were banned - and she wasn't in favour of the cattle market being moved. On the two days a week when it was run, it brought a lot of visitors to the town centre - people who came in to use the shops. Besides which, it was a tradition.

"We're a market town," she said. "If we haven't got a market, then what are we?"

Coun Keal was undeterred. He was, he said, 300 per cent convinced that going down the pedestrian route would be good for business, and good for shops.

But the main thing was to get the debate started, so the issues could be explained properly.

"I don't want to set up a battleground over this," he said. "I just want what's best for the town, the traders and the people who live and work here. I want to start a debate, not a war."

County council proposals

NORTH Yorkshire County Council is considering three options to improve pedestrian access in Malton town centre, as part of its traffic management strategy for Malton and Norton.

None of the options involve complete pedestrianisation of the Market Place, but all three would be feasible, the county council says, "if combined with additional parking provision outside, but close to, the Market Place".

The options are:

u Removing on-street parking along the north west side of the Market Place to create wider pavements

u Creating a new pedestrian area on the south east side of the Market Place by closing part of the road. Traffic on other roads would become two way, and the car park in front of the church would remain

u Creating a wider pedestrian area along the north east of the Market Place by scrapping on-street parking there.

Stewart Hurst, the county council's special projects manager, said a more radical solution could also be considered if that was what local people wanted. But nothing would happen until at least 2007 or 2008, he said, when North Yorkshire County Council will decide what action, if any, to take.

What York can teach Malton

When historic Stonegate became York's first fully pedestrianised street in 1971, most traders were in favour. The same was not true when York's pedestrian zone was extended in 1987 to include other city centre streets such as Parliament Street and Coney Street.

Nick Brown, owner of Browns of York, admitted that many York retailers then shared the concerns of Malton traders today.

"There was quite a lot of nervousness," he said. Many retailers argued that while pedestrianisation might work in big cities such as London or Birmingham, where there was ample parking space elsewhere, it wouldn't necessarily work in York.

Yet few retailers would now want to go back to having cars in Coney Street or Parliament Street, Mr Brown said.

There was no doubt that more people were walking around the centre of York, and enjoying what the city had to offer, than before, Mr Brown said. "Customers do enjoy the environment of the city knowing they can just wander free. If people have children, they don't have to worry that there might be a car coming." And because more people were in the city centre, more people were coming through the shops, he said.

So would he want to go back to having cars in the centre? "I would say no."

Di Golding, manager of the Coppergate Centre and vice president of the York and North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce, agreed. What was important, she said, was that retailers should have plenty of time to be able to receive deliveries. But with that proviso, it was better for people to be able to wander around the centre freely, she agreed.

The important thing for Malton, Mr Brown said, would be ensuring that there was sufficient parking elsewhere if cars were banned from the town centre. If somewhere such as the cattle market could be released for parking, he said, "that would be ideal".

Nobody from the Fitzwilliam (Malton) Estate, which runs the cattle market site in Malton, was available for comment.

Updated: 10:51 Friday, December 09, 2005