Scarborough Residents Will Shape £19.5 Million Town Investment At Friday Event

Scarborough residents will have the chance to shape a £19.5 million investment in their town at a series of public events this Friday evening.

Up to £19.5 million of funding will transform Scarborough over the next decade. Public presentations will give residents a direct voice in the Pride in Place programme at The Street this Friday, 11 September.

The long-term investment aims to improve public spaces, encourage local enterprise, and strengthen community activity. Central government allocated the budget to allow local people to dictate spending priorities across the town.

Heath Samples, Chair of the Scarborough Neighbourhood Board, explained the financial breakdown:

"The government decided that they were going to award initially 55 towns, which has been extended, I believe to about 170. 19.5 million pounds over 10 years, and that investment really is split by almost 15 million in capital funding and 4.6 million in revenue funding.

It's for things like improving buildings, streets, public places, as well as community activities, local services and basically to support people.

And central government has basically said look, you guys know your areas better than we do. So you go ahead, talk to the residents and tell us where that money needs spending."

Community engagement will drive the entire ten-year initiative. Planners distributed postcards to thousands of homes to ensure local voices guide the ongoing development process.

Heath Samples detailed the focus on resident involvement:

"We want it to be resident-led, and the engagement process has been going on now for, oh, I think over two years, and it's really important that we engage with residents, which is why we sent out postcards to some 26,500 households over the last three weeks, and set up Facebook pages to get the message out there to say to people, Look, this is what we're doing, these are the projects that we've already chosen, but this is a 10-year program.

The first projects are taking up for the next three and a half years, but then after that, we're back out there looking for key projects for what people in Scarborough want."

Several initiatives will move forward immediately. These initial schemes range from high street renovations and youth support networks to a dedicated men's mental health group.

Heath Samples outlined the first projects selected by the community:

"The first projects that were basically put down by residents as what they wanted to see better in Scarborough is a program called Sprucing Up Scarborough, and that's basically out there to tidy up the town centre, public spaces, shop fronts, greenery, and basically make the town a look a better place to live, work, thrive and socialize.

The second one is Square One, and these are in no particular order. Square One, if you cannot have a thriving town centre, if the biggest building in the town centre isn't up running and providing that that entertainment value, nighttime economy, and nighttime security.

The third is Stephen Joseph Theatre. Again, it's a jewel in the crown in Scarborough and very well supported. And we've we're helping them as part of the program for delivering much needed renovations and repairs.

There's also Scarborough fair which we've all been seeing a part of this year and we'll continue. Lot of events in public spaces all across the town. There's a lot of stuff going on this weekend as well.

Turning Tides youth support which is basically the the headliner for the different organizations helping young people with confidence, skills and well-being which is key, because a lot of these people fall through the sort of net and Turning Tides and those support organizations are there to pick them up.

And then we've got the men's wellbeing hub, called Dad's behaving madly, which was brought to us as a project to say look, the there's a lot of dads out there need support but they're not necessarily going to put their hand up and say they they want it. So this was created as a way for men to go out there, not necessarily speak to each other, but go out and have fun, have some time off, switch off and just enjoy each other's company.

The final one, community grant fund which has been allocated a part of around 400,000 pounds, which will be then available for organizations, institutions, clubs, etc to apply and get that money to help them do repairs, maybe increase their venues, maybe to tidy up their areas where they live, anything and everything. And we're just putting that final process together now to talk about what that criteria looks like."

A dedicated online platform will track these developments and gather public feedback. Officials hope the transparent approach will foster a positive community spirit and revive the town's historic prosperity.

Heath Samples highlighted the importance of online engagement and local optimism:

"We've set up a great website called commonplace where people can go online. They can see what these projects are, they can see where these projects are in terms of delivery. They can also see whereabouts location wise these projects are, how it impacts the town and then they can also add comments to those projects and then they can also comment on future ideas.

So it's a really good platform for people to continually engage with us, to tell us what they want because we can only work as a board if the residents feedback to us and tell us what they want.

I get really frustrated sometimes when you see a lot of people ready to have a lovely moan and groan. My, in my world, my glass is half full, not half empty, and I think that as a community we are very good at pulling together.

And I think under the pride in place program we can pull together and we can make our town back to what it used to be, that we all remember, when it thrived in the 80s and early 90s."

Friday's event will offer direct access to board members and project leaders. Sessions will run at 5.30pm, 6.15pm, and 7pm, with recordings made available online for anyone unable to attend.

Heath Samples explained what attendees can expect from the evening:

"We decided that we would basically put on a a a chance for everybody to come and meet with the board, come and listen to the projects, come and meet some of the project stakeholders, talk to them.

So we basically split it into three identical presentations. The first kicks off at half 5, it's 6:15 and 7, and they can book on 60 places on each session, and each session lasts around 20 minutes where we basically tell people this is how Pride in Place works, these are the projects that have been identified. Please give us your input going forward for the next tranche of funding and please keep an eye on everything that's changing and see how you can get involved and feedback to us as a board."

Advance booking is required to manage numbers at the free event. Residents can secure a place by visiting the Pride in Place Scarborough engagement hub online at https://scarborough-pride-in-place.commonplace.is/en-GB/