Louth's cattle market will be sold to supermarket giant Asda as agreed by councillors at East Lindsey District Council.
The controversial decision was made after a lengthy and emotive debate at the council chamber yesterday.
In a recorded vote 24 councillors voted in favour of the sale to supermarket giant Asda while 13 voted against and five members abstained.
It was agreed that prior to the closure of the existing cattle market another would be provided for the town.
Councillor John Upsall said in a statement after the meeting: "The council has a very clear duty to ensure taxpayers receive good value for money and I'm pleased council voted to sell this significantly underused site.
"Not only is it underused it would have required hundreds of thousands of pounds of investment over the coming years to maintain it in its current form.
"The council will now consider in detail options for replacing the Livestock Market facility."
One of the strong arguments for the sale during the meeting was that if the council didn't agree to this proposal then another supermarket would come forward with plans to build a store on the outskirts of the town instead.
Councillors insisted that this would drive people away from the town centre.
Councillor Doreen Stephenson, leader of the council, said during the meeting: "If we turn this proposal down there will be consequences. Applications will come in thick and fast for the industrial estate."
And Councillor Roger Burnett said that this was probably the most contentious decision the council had got to make in 40 years.
Prior to the meeting on Wednesday Nick Louth, of the Keep Louth Special protest group, presented a petition to the council which contained 4,300 signatures of people opposed to the plans.
After the decision was made Mr Louth said that people shouldn't give up.
"There are many more stages that this will have to go through yet," he said, "so we shouldn't be down cast about it," he added.
Mr Louth added that he didn't think the council's argument over the location of a supermarket was fair because a supermarket attempted to build on the industrial estate in 1998 and it was rejected by the council.
Asda will now need to submit a planning application to the council to be considered.
