A SUPERMARKET tycoon and a star gazer are among the top-paid people in York and North and East Yorkshire, according to an annual "rich list"

As reported in Saturday's Evening Press, Sir Ken Morrison is said to be North Yorkshire's highest-paid man, in the Sunday Times survey published yesterday.

The article puts the 71-year-old, who lives in Myton-on-Swale, near Boroughbridge, in 255th place in its league table of Britain's 500 top earners. He is the chairman of the Wm Morrison group. The newspaper claims he made £2.851 million last year, moving him up from the 284th spot.

In 470th place is Eddie Healey, who shelled out £40 million to the Marquess of Normanby for an East Yorkshire estate, which includes the village of Warter, near Pocklington. The £1.606 million he made last year came largely from the sale of his 60 per cent share in Sheffield's Meadowhall shopping centre in 1999. He suffered a significant drop in the Rich List positioning, from 23rd last year.

Meanwhile astrologer Jonathan Cainer, who lives in Easingwold and writes a six-days-a-week horoscope column in the Daily Mirror, is reported to have earned £2 million last year, lifting him from his previous position of 408th.

Other North Yorkshire tycoons have this year slipped out of the list. Hamish Ogston, the man behind CPP Holdings, an insurance and business services company based in York, fails to appear this year, and Peter Wilkinson disappears. He has a stake in Harrogate firm Intechnology.

The Shepherd Family, which owns York-based Shepherd Building, does not feature this year, and Simon Howard, owner of the Ryedale estate, Castle Howard, is not on the list.

Updated: 12:19 Monday, November 04, 2002