Malton - In My Back Yard

I expect people in Malton, my old town, will have greeted the news that they are living in ‘the most lusted after’ place in Britain with a happy smile.

Malton is not burdened with excessive self-regard (unlike some of its neighbours). Among North Yorkshire towns it is not the most picturesque or most architecturally interesting, nor the wealthiest. Despite some modest efforts, it is not normally a particularly popular tourist destination. If it prides itself on anything, it is that it is basically down-to-earth, ‘a working town.’

Historically, housing booms and busts have tended to wash past Malton without pausing to take a look.

The ‘most lusted after town in Britain’

And yet, people are right to want to live there, because it has everything you need for a good life. Social amenities? Local clinic, local hospital, good schools, cinema, dentists, vehicle hire, good garage? All good. I’m particularly upbeat about Malton School because its Sixth Form hosted by far the sharpest hustings of my 2020 election.

Let’s go shopping. Frankly, you’ll not find much in the way of luxury-goods or antiques. But for food: it has a great greengrocers in the town square (Paleys); across the river we have Fletchers, a butcher whose applewood dry-smoked bacon is probably the best in the world, and beef pies I have know people travel from London to buy. That’s not all: I am amazed ‘Stuarts of Driffield’ wasn’t mentioned in the UK’s top fish and chip shops. And it is hard to imagine a better ingredients shop that ‘Scoops’.

And then there’s, Ralph Yates, a genre-defying cornucopia that will sell you everything from lingerie to replacement parts for your electric fence.

There are plenty of pretty pictures of Malton, but it seems to me that Yates is typifies the real Malton. Nothing special on the outside, astonishing inside.

For booze, Malton Brewery has just pioneered the first ‘Yorkshire pudding based beer’. If beer’s not your thing, you can mix your own botanicals for your own gin at Rare Bird Distillery.

Sports? Rugby club, football club, cricket club, golf club, tennis, squash and bowls. Two spectacular local parkruns (Castle Howard, and Dalby Forest). Dog-walking: the Gannock, a unique river-side commons where dogs have been happy for generations, so all get on with each other.

My daily run? Started with a three quarters of a mile along the Gannock’s riverbank, through the boardwalk on Ladyspring Wood, and then round the Roman Fort in Orchard Fields. Back through Ladyspring, around the cricket pitch, up round first the rugby pitch, then football pitch, and finally round the 11th Century Norman Church and home. Even in winter, it’s pretty inviting.

The Gannock, with the River Derwent

Other social amenities? Well, Castlegate Lil is the local lady of the night - she’s getting on a bit, but still a recognized member of the public. For more (and more respectable) nightlife, York is the first stop down the train line.

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So yes, despite a distinct lack of ostentation, Malton has all it needs for a good life, thank you.

But it could easily have lost it, like so many others, had it simply clung on. The fate of many small market towns has been similar: the population ages as young families move to the cities, and as the aging continues, so the ability to keep its amenities dies in anticipation. The town loses its post office office, its banks, its cinemas, its sports clubs, its pubs. At which point, it dies or becomes a mere dormitory. Or it could have gone up-market and become a large-scale antique shop.

The reason Malton has avoided this familiar decline is that over the last 10 years or so, major new-build estates have been developed on a quite major scale. Take another look at that ariel photo of the place: the ‘picturesque’ Malton which gets photo’d is a small cluster in the middle, and, you’ll notice, is entirely encircled with new, rather less picturesque, estates.

Development on this scale was not universally popular. There was a degree of Nimbyism which opposed all this development, and there is no doubt it has brought its own problems. The town’s medieval layout is not scaled for the 21st century. So Malton hosts Butchers Corner, which is quite possibly the worst cross-roads in Yorkshire. The bridge which connects Malton to neighbouring Norton is inadequate, as, in fact, is the entire newly-contorted street-design through Norton. No-one has any plans to deal with these problems, or indeed any idea how they can be dealt with.

But Nimbyism didn’t win - possibly simply because the place was not particularly ostentatious, not particularly in hock to the property market in the first place. With less to lose, the argument that ‘people have to have somewhere to live’ became less contentious.

Now you see the payoff in the number of buggies in the town square, the number of young people moving in, bringing new business ideas, and raising new families. Malton, unostentatious workaday Malton, wakes up to discover it has become the most lusted-after place in Britain. It turns out that being ‘a working town’ in which Nimbyism didn’t win, is actually a pretty good place to be.