TRADERS are to appeal to the owners of a shopping centre to save an indoor market - and their jobs.

Retailers have been told that Middlesbrough Borough Council is about to sell its leasehold on the town's Hill Street Centre to owners Royal Sun Alliance in four weeks.

A town hall spokesman said the council hoped to finalise its agreement with the insurance group by mid-December.

The traders say it will force 30 small firms out of business and put 100 people out of work.

Hairdresser Joanne Adamson said: "The council will leave here in four weeks and we will have a new landlord. They (Sun Alliance) have developments planned for the whole of Hill Street, but they don't include the indoor market."

She was among the market traders who picketed a meeting on Tuesday of the Council's cabinet, which went behind closed doors to decide to sell its lease interests to Sun Alliance.

A council spokesman said the council would be as helpful as it could to the market traders "in terms of advice and support to sustain their businesses."

He described a meeting with the traders as "productive". But Miss Adamson said it had been a waste of time.

The millions of pounds the council will make with its sale of the lease will go to regeneration projects such as the Middlehaven dockland redevelopment at Middlesbrough, the creation of an art gallery and a civic square.

The council says there are empty shops in the town centre which market businesses could move to, but the traders say they cannot afford the rents