At its meeting on Thursday Ryedale District Council agreed to match a £138,000 grant from Yorkshire Forward and a further £27,000 from the county council and third parties to fund improvements to the town centre.

The council will find its share of the £185,000 from its capital programme.

The money will be spent on a package of “small-scale” improvements to signs and information boards, Saturday market stalls, access routes and paving and further enhancements to yards and ginnels.

Footfall counters, operated in partnership with the Fitzwilliam Estate, are to be introduced.

Cash is also to be used to produce detailed designs and costings, including business plans, for improvement of the Milton Rooms and for “wide- scale physical improvements” to public areas in the town centre, such as links between shopping areas, car parks and the bus and rail stations.

Cllr Howard Keal said: “This is an excellent proposal. The yards and ginnels are an important part of the town’s character. They will make a big difference to the problem areas and the having in those areas. Better signage and sprucing up of the market stalls is all good.”

He said he hoped similar schemes could help Pickering, Helmsley and Kirkbymoor- side in the future.

Cllr Edward Legard said it would be “utter madness to forego match funding”, and added: “Here we have got a chance to spend some money, which is brilliant. We must seize the opportunity to provide tangible improvements, albeit small scale.”

And Cllr Lindsay Burr praised the work of the council’s officers who secured the match funding before describing the cash as an “early Christmas present” for Malton.

She said: “We have had a lot of doom and gloom and this is a ray of good news. We should get on and we should spend that money.”

As part of the match funding agreement with Yorkshire Forward the council must now spend the money before the end of the financial year.

Malton and Norton Area Partnership will have a say on the scope of the work and will monitor the performance.