What Ryedale District Council wants to do
is this:

The district council (RDC), as opposed to the town council, has very different ideas. And it is difficult to see how they benefit Malton. Their plan is to allow a big supermarket outside the town centre, a cuckoo in the nest that pushes its more vulnerable nestlings out in order to grab every morsel that’s going. The site proposed is the Wentworth Street car park. RDC already owns it, as you may have noticed by the excessive parking charges that have actively discouraged users. RDC aims to sell it to the highest bidder, with the expectation of planning permission it would grant. It would be a big store, selling everything, threatening Malton’s existing businesses while changing the nature of the town centre.

As a destination, a one-stop shop, it would offer the kind of shopping experience where visitors go nowhere else. One of RDC’s prime responsibilities is to uphold national and local planning policies to protect the vitality and viability of town centres. In both Norton and Malton we are seeing this duty breached against specialist advice and public opinion.

We say, in the interests of Malton, keep the Wentworth Street car park, tidy it up, make the charges reasonable: visitors will use it, the town centre will be busy, the shops, and the restaurants, cafes and pubs will all thrive.

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The chosen developers of the Wentworth Street car park, GMI Holbeck Land, have distributed a leaflet in the town, and have uploaded a website (opens a new browser window) with further information about the proposed supermarket. Fitzwilliam (Malton) Trust has issued a news release in response.