THE prominent Yarm businesswoman's pleas on behalf of the town's traders will strike a chord with many of her colleagues in the High Street and also many residents.

Like any number of towns Yarm is choked by traffic, most of which seems to be looking for somewhere to park on its attractive cobbles - the only sizeable parking area.

The finger is being pointed at the town council and Stockton Borough Council which, in Yarm at least, is always accused of having what it deems to be more important matters to deal with in less fortunate parts of its fiefdom.

No doubt the borough could do more to find additional parking space in the town but the council's reply will undoubtedly be that land cannot be conjured up out of thin air.

Rather more novel is the businesswoman's point about the town's neglected riverside - it truly is a ill-used asset.

The North-East has had a rather strange relationship with its rivers. For many years the region used them as open sewers and towns and cities guiltily tended to turn their backs on them. Now things are changing with Newcastle and Stockton leading the quayside revivals. York has always been ahead of the game with water-borne tourism and Ripon, too, in recent years has began to make better use of its canal and basin.

Yarm, sadly, has resolutely kept its back turned on the Tees. Perhaps this has been because of a pre-occupation with the flooding threat the river posed for so long. It is hard to think of attractive rowing boats for hire and launch slipways for gin palaces when worrying about flood wall heights and sandbags.

But think about it it must if the town is to diversify its appeal beyond being the eating and drinking hotspot of the Tees Valley.

The Tees at Yarm might not be the match of the Wear at Durham, but an attractively developed riverside could be the visitor lure the town's business community seeks.