Councillors are set to approve £40,000 of funding to research gull nesting towers and wild swimming ahead of a spending deadline.
Members of the Scarborough and Whitby Area Constituency Committee (ACC) could approve two research projects worth £40,000 to ensure that funds allocated to the area are spent ahead of a “hard deadline” next March.
The plan proposes £20,000 to look into the use of seabird nesting towers “to safeguard gull populations and minimise their impact on urban areas and functions”.
The other half would be allocated towards investigating the feasibility of improving safe wild swimming in Scarborough.
It follows a meeting of the ACC in June when councillors allocated £66,000 towards improving access at Cayton Bay, offshore economic opportunities, an active travel scheme, and a cultural and historical ‘Scarborough 400’ project.
The committee made up of councillors from Scarborough and Whitby, has an annual budget of £50,000 and the funds from 2023/24 and 2024/25 – a combined £100,000 – have to be spent by March next year, according to a report.
Following the meeting in June, £34,000 was left unallocated.
However, the report prepared ahead of the next meeting on Thursday, October 3, proposes reducing the previously allocated budget towards offshore economic opportunities by £6,000 to £14,000.
The reduction would address an over-ambitious approach to the offshore wind scheme, according to officers, who said that “it can occasionally be the case that we push to achieve too much with insufficient resources”.
Instead, the report states: “The core aspects can be delivered internally and some of the funding could then be used to deliver a peer review of the report, creating the same outcome, with reduced need for expenditure”.
This would allow £20,000 to be spent on both the seabird nesting and wild swimming research initiatives.
According to council documents, the gull nesting tower project would “assess the value of recent innovations in nesting structures, and whether these developments could be used to complement existing activity to safeguard gull populations and minimise their impact on urban areas and functions”.
The study aims to provide insight into whether investing would or would not be an effective tool to achieve the aims of the council’s gull strategy.
The investigation into the feasibility of improving opportunities for safe sea swimming in Scarborough would explore the value of how “potential investments such as pontoons or a seawater pool could complement existing provision, and future ambitions for the town”.
The report states that wild swimming can play a fundamental part in improving people’s health and wellbeing but at present there is “a notable lack of provision beyond lifeguards” in Scarborough’s South and North Bay.
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