A MEETING this week could help to decide the future of a Wensleydale market town - but only if enough residents turn up to take part in the debate.

Middleham's community forum was formed by residents who felt more time and energy needed to be devoted to developing a strategy for the future.

Chairman Peter Hibbard said the town council was not always in a position to fulfil the role as it was often distracted by more immediate concerns.

Nevertheless, Wednesday night's meeting was prompted by a letter to the town council from the Countryside Agency.

It said that local authorities could apply for grants from the Vital Villages Fund to help finance strategic development.

Since then, the administration has been working with community forums on a strategy.

"If a bid is successful, then we would have money to pay for professional help with things like feasibility studies and illustrations which may help ideas to develop," said Mr Hibbard.

"What happens first is that the town council makes a preliminary statement indicating it intends to apply for a grant and then invites the community forum to act as a steering committee to guide the project through the next phase.

"The good thing is that we are already working together on this rather than going off half-cocked - but we can't really do anything until we know what people see as the problems and how they would like to address them.

"It's no good imposing ideas on people - and we have no intention of doing that - but what we want to see is as many people as possible at the meeting, willing to come along and say something."

The meeting will be held at the Middleham Key Centre, at 7.30pm, on Wednesday.

However, Mr Hibbard emphasised he hoped debate would be confined to the way ahead.

He said: "This is not an opportunity for people to complain about what has happened in Middleham in the past, nor for those responsible to defend their decisions. We would like to think we can limit discussion to where we go from here."