Council Accepts First Tranche of Scarborough's £19.5 Million Regeneration Fund

North Yorkshire Council has formally accepted the initial funding instalment of the government’s Plan for Neighbourhoods (PfN) programme for Scarborough, just weeks before the Scarborough Neighbourhood Board submits its comprehensive strategy for the ten-year investment.

Scarborough was included as one of 75 towns across the UK set to benefit from the Plan for Neighbourhoods funding. This programme, which follows the Government’s wider push to ‘level up’ areas facing growth constraints due to geographical location or socio-economic issues, provides endowment-style funding totalling just under £20 million over the next decade. Scarborough was the only town in North Yorkshire selected for the scheme when it was announced earlier this year.

The initial funding being accepted by the Council is £6.808 million. This amount is intended to deliver interventions detailed in the initial four-year Investment Plan, covering the financial years 2026/27 to 2029/30.

Councillor Mark Crane, who is the executive member for open to business and also sits on the new Scarborough Neighbourhood Board, welcomed the investment, stating:

"The government announced earlier this year that it would have a new policy around levelling up for certain towns across the UK.

Scarborough is the only one in North Yorkshire that was selected, but it means good news for Scarborough. There's significant sums of money coming in there.

The plan has to be done by the end of this month. We are on course for doing that and the neighbourhood board meets next Friday to sign that off.

This is a positive news story for Scarborough with 6.5 million pounds coming in from the government and I'm sure there's many projects in Scarborough that will benefit as a result of it".

The Scarborough Neighbourhood Board is tasked with finalising and approving both the ten-year Regeneration Plan and the initial four-year Investment Plan. The plan must be submitted to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) by 28 November 2025 to trigger the release of the initial funding tranche.

The development of the plan is required to be established through a community-led approach. North Yorkshire Council, which acts as the accountable body for the fund, led a comprehensive engagement process in partnership with the Neighbourhood Board, reaching over 1,000 residents between May and September 2025.

Scarborough Councillor Liz Colling highlighted the importance of this input and the structure of the long-term funding:

"The responsibility for the actual solutions to some of the problems that Scarborough suffers will be made by the neighbourhood board.

We've done an amazing amount of community engagement. It's the biggest community engagement we've ever done. So, we've got a very clear guide from the community about the problems they'd like to see addressed.

The challenge as always is what interventions can we afford to pay for that would help address those problems. That work is underway.

The money that we're having now is the first tranche of the money. It comes in three sections. So we will have further investment opportunities in 30/31 and 33/34. It's good news for Scarborough".

The overall £19.5 million investment is distributed across three investment plan periods. Following the initial four-year period, further investment opportunities are scheduled for the financial years 2030/31 and 2033/34.

The community engagement undertaken between May and September 2025 focused on eight key themes guiding the Plan for Neighbourhoods. The most significant priorities identified through community votes were Regeneration, High Streets and Heritage (20.4%), and Health and Wellbeing (18.9%).

Scarborough Councillor Janet Jefferson welcomed the scale of the commitment and emphasised the need for community unity in implementing the plan. Councillor Jefferson, who is also President of Chamber Trade and East Traders, said:

"I welcome this. I think it's really good that 19.5 million is coming to the Scarborough area.

The main thing to me is cohesion and bringing the communities together which I think will be really good that we can bring all age groups together to discuss what they want to see happening within our town and I think that's an opportunity for everybody and I look forward to being involved with it and getting the community involved.

I'm president of Chamber Trade and Eastborough Traders and we're all looking forward to putting small bids in to try and help our high street".

The Plan for Neighbourhoods aims to align with three core objectives: Thriving Places, Stronger Communities, and Taking back control. North Yorkshire Council’s Executive recommended accepting the funding and delegated authority to relevant Corporate Directors and Executive Members to submit the final plan following approval by the Scarborough Neighbourhood Board.