Scarborough has picked the first projects it will back with its long-term regeneration money. North Yorkshire Council’s executive has approved more than £6m for seven Scarborough projects, the first slice of the resort’s roughly £20m share of the decade-long Pride in Place programme. As The Scarborough News reported, the money is spread across the town rather than poured into a single scheme.
Where the money goes
The seven projects are a deliberate mix of the physical and the social: Sprucing up Scarborough, the Scarborough Fair heritage project, a Men’s Wellbeing Hub, the Square One and Brunswick Centre scheme, the Stephen Joseph Theatre, a Community Grant Fund, and the Turning Tides youth support programme. It is a blend of public realm, culture, wellbeing and direct community funding, rather than a single big building.
Seaside towns and the delivery test
Coastal regeneration is some of the hardest there is. Seaside towns carry deep, structural problems: seasonal economies, weaker transport links and older housing stock that a lick of paint cannot fix. Spreading £6m across seven projects has an obvious risk, that the money is thinned out so widely nothing visibly changes. The counter-argument is that a resort’s problems are genuinely varied, and a mix of physical, cultural and community spending can reach corners a single flagship project would miss.
The right instinct
Backing a wellbeing hub and a youth programme alongside public realm shows Scarborough understands that its challenges are social as much as physical. As North Yorkshire Council has set out, this first £6m is part of a wider £20m vision for the town. The measure of it will be whether residents feel the difference, and whether the money is followed through with the discipline to finish what it starts.
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