Traders are on the verge of quitting a Ryedale town because high parking charges are driving their customers away, a business group has claimed.

Ryedale Business Action says Malton will be turned into a ghost town unless the charges, which apply to spaces in the market square and behind Yorkersgate, are abolished.

And the group claims that this year a national chain store ditched secret plans to build on the town's Farmer's Market when it learned of the high price of parking.

The group has also accused Ryedale District Council of excluding interested groups, like themselves, from the consultation process.

It says a private consultation which it funded, recommending abolishing parking charges in Malton to help trade, has been totally ignored by council officers.

And in a letter to the group last month, obtained by the Evening Press, a senior council officer says the group would not be asked for its views on charging because its views were already known and to ask them again "would seem rather a waste of taxpayers' money".

The letter has outraged the group, which claims to represent the interests of 99 per cent of traders in the town.

Last Friday the Evening Press revealed how a council document was allegedly considering plans for a one-hour parking restriction in the town - Mayor Norris Binner said the plan would "destroy" Malton.

Ryedale Business Action's joint secretaries Denis Lindsay and Vivienne Hughes say they have been left at their "wits' end".

"Over the last few years traders have slowly started to leave the town," said Mr Lindsay.

"Mennells, which had a history of over a hundred years of trade here, has quit the town and the same has happened with Greenwoods," he added.

"Unless the council start listening to traders they will strike Malton's death knell.

"I know of many traders in this town who have said they will up and leave if the council does not change its ways soon - the issue is causing traders too much stress."

The group plans to outline its views in a letter which they plan to send to the chief executive of Ryedale District Council.

"If they don't start including us or listening to us I am afraid we will be forced to take further action," said Mrs Hughes.

Harold Mosley, chief executive of Ryedale District Council, denied Ryedale Business Action was being left out of the process.

"They have had representation at a number of meetings and their members have even had individual meetings with our officers," he said.

"A survey of shoppers carried out on behalf of the council has revealed that sales in Malton car parks have been increasing by five per cent per year since 1997.

"This does not suggest customers are being driven away from the town. Finally I know nothing of this national chain store which the group says has expressed an interest in the town."