THE Market Town Revival campaign being run by the D&S Times has been praised by a leading figure in a pioneering programme to revitalise such communities in the Yorkshire and Humber region.

The historic market town of Malton was chosen as the launching pad for the ground-breaking six-year programme, which is expected to see a total of £20m invested in communities chosen for rejuvenation by the Countryside Agency and Yorkshire Forward, the regional development body.

The initiative, a pilot scheme for the Countryside Agency nationally, will offer direct financial help to up to 18 towns by 2006 to help reinforce their role as service centres for residents, businesses and surrounding communities.

Six towns will initially be chosen for help and will receive from the two agencies an average of £340,000 over three years. This will help to pay for development of an action plan, administration costs for a local partnership, project funding and a final evaluation of the scheme.

When matched funding is included, however, it is expected that each of the 18 towns taking part in the programme will receive new investment totalling more than £1m from the two agencies and other partners, including the European Union.

The names of the first six towns are due to be officially announced at the end of this month. Mr David Gluck, initiative manager at the Countryside Agency, said reports identifying likely front runners across the region were pure speculation.

He said there were 120 towns in the population range of between 2,000 and 30,000 defined for the programme and priorities were being looked at in talks with local authorities.

Mr Gluck said of the D&S Times campaign: "It has been exceptionally helpful in raising market towns on the agenda. It is raising the profile of market towns, not just in the Yorkshire region, because we have sent copies of the articles and the campaign to other parts of the country.

"The D&S Times campaign builds on other work which we and Action for Market Towns have been doing."

The new joint initiative, embracing towns which need not necessarily have a traditional market, is designed to assess the most effective ways ahead in the 21st century for communities which have been undermined by social, industrial, economic and agricultural changes over the past 50 years.

It will cover services, public transport, heritage and the environment, housing, business and employment.

Mr Gluck said: "The programme is not a competitive one. Towns will be chosen on the basis of need, opportunity and commitment of local partners. Help will be given to a wide range of different types of town because each town has its own characteristics and problems.

"We would be very interested to hear from any town which wants to be a part of the programme."

Mrs Pam Warhurst, deputy chairman of the Countryside Agency and a Yorkshire Forward board member, said: "The vitality of market towns has to be a good performance indicator for the health of our countryside.

"Partnership really matters between professionals and the people. There is enormous interest in market towns and we must be carefuilly we don't go off half-cocked with our own agendas without listening to others."

Mr Richard Wakeford, chief executive of the Countryside Agency, said the programme would involve community-led action building on current regeneration projects.

"The starting point is a health check enabling local authorities to look at thd social and environmental condition of market towns and identify danger signs for the future.

"The community needs to be leading. The community must determine what the priorities are and what resources are needed. Town and parish councils, sports clubs, residents' associations, WIs, representatives of all ages and all ethnic groups, but particularly the young, must be involved.

"In the rural White Paper being completed by the Government we are looking for strong messages about market towns, but we are acting now to show the way forward."

Mr David Fletcher, chairman of Action for Market Towns, said: "We are delighted and overwhelmed by the suddenness with which market towns have leapt to the top of the agenda. We must ride on the back of this surge of interest and work with it to see that it goes in the right direction.

"For a long time the perception has been that there was not a problem in market towns. Trends were perhaps slight and not immediately noticeable, but signs of stress are beginning to appear.

"There have been changes in shopping and employment, market towns have lost a lot of the local authority powers they had and more effort needs to be put into existing buildings. Why should VAT be charged for the conversion of an empty property to residential use?"

A key element in the revitalisation programme is the work of Living Over the Shop (LOTS), which is working to set up schemes in 12 market towns including Richmond, Thirsk and Whitby.

LOTS has estimated that, nationally, empty spaces above shops could provide housing for at least half a million people who would be living and spending in a town centre.

In the early 1990s, Ripon became one of the most successful towns in the country in impelementing the LOTS scheme, with housing for more than 50 people created in and around the market place in the first three years.

Among those at the Malton launch of the market towns programme was Mr Ken Wilson, town centre manager at Richmond, where an action plan has been drawn up and consultants have been engaged.

He said: "I am particularly interested in LOTS because we can identify potential places in Richmond but it is a matter of persuading landlords to do it."