SKIPTON Auction Mart hosted its largest ever event last Thursday.

Underlining its growing influence as a leading northern events venue, the mart hosted the National Beef Association's Beef Expo 2007.

Organisers said this year's Expo was the biggest and best since the annual event was launched 10 years ago Almost 6,000 people visited the auction mart to view a record 155 trade stands and 23 beef demonstrations.

More than 30 overseas guests from Poland, Portugal, Germany, Belgium, France, the Czech Republic, Nigeria and the Republic of Ireland joined thousands of beef farmers from throughout the UK and Ireland.

It is the biggest single event to have been held at Skipton Auction Mart since it moved to the Gargrave Road site in 1990. Traffic management and park-and-ride schemes were put in place to cope with visitor numbers.

As a result of the influx, demand for accommodation rose throughout Craven and beyond.

Sue Swales, manager of Skipton Tourist Information Centre, said every single hotel and bed and breakfast room in the town was booked on the eve of the event.

And Anthea Rathlin-Jones, Craven Cattle Mart's events manager, said: "Beef Expo, which was a year in planning, is the biggest single outside event we have ever staged at the mart. It proved a huge success, with the traffic management and parking schemes put in place working really well.

"Beef Expo has helped raise the profile of Skipton and the wider area both nationally and internationally, also having a beneficial impact on both the local and rural economies.

"Equally, it has cemented the reputation of Skipton Auction Mart as a major venue in the north for staging events of national importance and - through the Mart Theatre - as a rural centre for culture and entertainment.

"The facilities here are superb and occasions such as Beef Expo are both fundamental and crucial to what I am trying to deliver here in crossing borders between the arts and agriculture."

Craven Cattle Marts general manager, Jeremy Eaton, added: "Big national events such as these help subsidise the operation of livestock markets at Skipton, which will always remain our core business activity in support of the regional agricultural communities."