Filey Gets Divorced from Scarborough and Whitby

Saturday, 1 April 2023 07:00

By Matthew Pells

North Yorkshire is waking up to a new political system this morning which separates Filey from the rest of the former Scarborough Borough.

The county, district and borough councils have been abolished and replaced with a new North Yorkshire Council - which takes on all of their responsibilities and operates across the entire county.

The new authority will organise it's local activities, like planning, using the boundaries of the existing parliamentary constituencies.

That means that While Scarborough and Whitby will remain in one local area, Filey and Hunmanby are now part of the Malton and Thirsk area.

Local councillor, Michelle Donohue-Moncrieff has concerns about the arrangement.

The new council will retain a main office in each former district area, supported by additional customer access points in the places people go, such as libraries.

Staff will continue to live and work in the communities they serve, listening to the needs of individual places and supporting local priorities and action.

Each parliamentary constituency will have it's own "Local Area Committee" consisting of the councillors from that area, it's expected to meet four times a year although many councillors feel this meeting frequency will have to increase to deal with the volume of work. Each of the Local Area Committees will then have a sub group to deal with planning issues, this committee is scheduled to meet once per month.

Concerns have been raised about the effect of the new structure for Filey and Hunmanby. Their constituency area stretches some 62 miles inland to cover Malton and Thirsk, towns which have very different issues to the coastal towns.

Hunmanby Councillor - Michelle Donohue-Moncrieff - isn't entirely comfortable with the arrangement, she is worried there is a danger that Filey will get overlooked, something which happened at yesterday's final meeting of the North Yorkshire County Council Local Area Committee where a crime report for the constituency didn't include Filey and Hunmanby either in the report or on the associated map.

Councillor Donohue-Moncrieff raised local people's concerns with fellow councillors on the Local Area Committee.

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