The newest phase of a multimillion-pound scheme to rejuvenate and reanimate high streets across North Yorkshire has been opened by Mayor David Skaith.
The elected Mayor of York and North Yorkshire wants to see “big, bold, and ambitious plans” submitted by partnerships across the county as the second phase of the High Streets Fund has opened to applications.
Grants of up to £150,000 can be received by partnerships and groups from a pot of £4m.
“The real strength of the High Street Fund really has been the fact that it sees partnerships coming together,”
Mayor Skaith told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS).
“Instead of an individual business putting a bid in for an individual grant, it is partnership building, organisations coming together who represent their towns, telling us what they want to see from it, rather than me telling the town what they should be doing on that high street.”
Successful applicants in the first round included the Stephen Joseph Theatre’s project to ‘Revitalise Scarborough Town Centre’, which was awarded £35,000.
Commenting on challenges facing the North Yorkshire coast, including existing issues with a lack of infrastructure and worse health outcomes, Mayor Skaith noted:
“Almost every challenge that we face in the country is exacerbated […] because of that lack of infrastructure, and lack of investment.
“So we see a lack of affordable homes, a lack of improved transport connectivity, and a lack of skills aligned to industry and jobs.”
Speaking to the LDRS, he added:
“That’s the beauty of having a mayor and a Combined Authority, the fact that we can target those pockets, and we can target that investment into our challenging areas to bring them up.
“And it’s not just one silver bullet. It’s improving the transport, it’s improving the job outcomes, and it’s about building affordable homes and bringing that all together to create proper, sustainable places.”
The mayor said he hoped the funding would go towards creating “a sense of place where we can come together” and that the project was about offering residents, including young people “something to do and engage with, as well as making those communities and high streets year-round.”
Asked about the evolving nature of high streets and changes in what people want and expect from their town centres, David Skaith said that “high streets are evolving, they’re not dying.”
He added:
“They’re changing and the offering of high streets is going to be very different in 10 years’ time to what it was 10 years ago, to what it is now, and we have to adapt and evolve.”
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