Some of the best regeneration money is spent stopping things falling down. A £1.3m restoration of Whitby’s grade two-listed Old Town Hall has completed, bringing the 18th century landmark back into public use. As Place Yorkshire reported, the work was funded through the town’s £17.1m Towns Fund allocation, delivered with North Yorkshire Council.
How bad it had got
A structural survey found three of the building’s 16 sandstone columns in critical condition. That is not cosmetic decay, that is a load-bearing problem in a building the public walks under. The clock tower and roof also needed repair, and the first floor had been unused since 2017.
What has been done with it
The columns, tower and roof are repaired, and the first floor has been refurbished into a flexible venue for cultural activities, exhibitions and community events. The market traders who were relocated during the works return for the August Bank Holiday weekend. Renovation started in 2025 and finished this month.
Align led the design. Ron Walton, its managing director, said the team “worked closely with the council throughout the project to make sure this important and historic building has been carefully restored”. Councillor Mark Crane, deputy leader of North Yorkshire Council, said the investment “was about preserving its legacy, securing its future and also bringing a much-loved landmark back into active use”. An official reopening event is being arranged.
Why this is a decent use of Towns Fund money
Towns Fund allocations have a mixed record. Plenty went on projects that were nice enough but did not change much, and a few went on things that never got built at all. This one is defensible on straightforward grounds: the building was deteriorating, it sits at the centre of the town’s market, and doing nothing would have meant losing it or fencing it off.
There is a harder-nosed argument too. Whitby’s economy runs substantially on visitors, and the built fabric of the old town is the product. Letting the Old Town Hall crumble is not just a heritage loss, it is degrading the thing people come for. Restoring it and bringing an unused floor back into service adds usable space for events in a town that is short of it.
The bit that will decide whether it worked
A flexible venue is only worth having if somebody programmes it. Whitby now has a refurbished first floor that has sat empty since 2017. Whether it is busy in 2028 depends on operating arrangements and bookings, not on the quality of the stonework. The stonework, at least, will not be the problem for another century.
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