A SHOPKEEPER forced to close his business on Belle Vue Terrace after just six months says Malvern is becoming a "ghost town".

Mike Haycock announced this week that he was selling stock and shutting his shop, Farmhouse Kitchen, because of the lack of trade.

He warned that unless drastic action is taken to encourage business and promote the town, Malvern will "die on its feet".

"I think that if you run a shop you have to attract a certain percentage of people in who walk past," he said.

"Say you attract ten per cent. Well if a thousand people walk past your shop then you're all right.

"But I've stood and watched people walk past the shop and sometimes there has been as few as 40 people in a day."

"This town is dying on its feet. I've spoken to people who didn't realise I was here. They have told me they got halfway up Church Street and saw the charity shops and empty shops and didn't think it would be worth going any further."

Mr Haycock said he and his wife, Karen, will also be quitting their Jubilee Drive home. "I'm disappointed with just about everything round here," he said.

"I've worked all over the Midlands and I have never come across a town with an attitude like it.

"Stratford has Shakespeare. Malvern has beautiful architecture, Elgar, the Malvern Hills, Malvern water and a theatre that attracts top international artists every month.

"And we have signs in the town centre advertising things going on in Ledbury.

"Ledbury is buzzing. You can't get parked in the car parks, of which there are plenty, and there are always people going in and out of the shops."

Mr Haycock will return to doing art and design after his shop is shut in the next two weeks.