The Driffield Cattle Market Company Ltd - which owns much of the site - wants to build a huge retail and residential scheme, with a supermarket 12 shops and dozens of new homes.

But town centre traders are concerned that the project has sounded the death-knell for the current main street as it would divert shoppers away from their businesses to a new location off Eastgate South.

Now business owners are being urged to make their views known as part of a hard-hitting poster and leaflet campaign which urges them to write to the town council and to the local planning authority, the East Riding of Yorkshire Council.

A meeting has also been called for September 6 at the Inspiration Cafe Bar to give traders the opportunity to discuss the increasingly controversial proposals and to air their views and explore the alternatives for the town's future prosperity.

If eventually approved, the redevelopment of the former cattle market and surrounding area would make way for an anchor supermarket / foodstore - about two thirds the size of the Tesco store in Beverley; 12 unit shops; 14 three-bed houses with 14 car parking spaces; 32 one, two and two to three-bed flats; a community cinema; 409 car parking spaces; hard and soft landscaping, making a feature of the beck; full servicing facilities for the new shops.