Scarborough Town Council a Step Closer

Wednesday, 11 January 2023 06:00

By Matthew Pells

Scarborough could have a new town council in April 2024 and minor changes could be made to parish boundaries at Eastfield, Osgodby and Newby & Scalby.

The county council's executive yesterday backed a plan to create the council to take in five Scarborough wards that are currently without a parish council.

Kerry Russell, head of democratic services at Scarborough Borough Council outlines the plan

A second consultation on the plan will now go ahead after the county council's executive backed the plan.

It would see five unparished areas of Scarborough form the new town authority.

69% of respondents to an initial consultation backed the idea.

Option	Votes	Percentage
not to create a parish council	97	18.1%
to create a parish council	376	70.0%
Some other option	12	2.2%
Don’t know / not sure	52	9.7%
	537	100.0%

The Borough Council's head of democratic services - Kerry Russell - says there were some common themes in the public responses.

With the majority of responses to the initial consultation backing the creation of a parish council for Scarborough the proposal now is to create a single parish covering the unparished area, to be know as Scarborough Town Council, with the exception of the following areas:

To exclude the unparished part of Eastfield Ward which is being recommended to form part of Eastfield Town Council
To exclude the unparished part of Charles Williams Apartments which are being recommended to form part of Newby & Scalby Town Council
To exclude the 3 unparished properties at Osgodby which are being recommended to form part of Osgodby Parish Council

Styling the new Scarborough council as a Town council rather than a parish enables the use of the title of "Mayor" for the council's chair.

The plan will now go to a second phase of public consultation, if that shows support for the plan then it is likely that an order to create the town council will be made in the summer of 2023. If that is the case it is proposed that the parish comes into existence for administrative purposes on 01 April 2024, and the date of the first election be 2 May 2024. This would be for a reduced term of three years to enable the election cycle to coincide with that of the principal council, in order to save costs. The next ordinary elections would take place in 2027 at the same time as for the North Yorkshire Council and all other parish councils in the county.

The new town council would be divided into five wards matching the existing county council divisions.

Proposed Ward of new council	Electorate (Dec 2022)	Electorate Prediction (2027*)
Castle	5,369	6,027
Falsgrave & Stepney	6,137	6,170
Northstead	5,461	5,520
Weaponness & Ramshill	5,771	5,961
Woodlands	5,171	5,171
Totals	27,909	28,849

It's being proposed that each ward would have three councillors, meaning there would be 15 town councillors in total, the same number as currently represent the area on the Borough Council.

As part of Local Government Reorganisation all the assets of Scarborough Borough Council will transfer to the new authority – North Yorkshire Council. Should a town council be created and should it wish to take on responsibility for any assets formerly belonging to SBC, it will need to demonstrate that it has the ability to do so, whilst delivering value for money

No assets will be automatically transferred on creation of a town council. Assets will only be transferred to parish councils where they want it. The only exception to this is the civic collection, including the civic regalia, which will be the responsibility of the Charter Trustees for Scarborough from 1 April 2023.

Should a town council be created the Charter Trustee body will cease to exist and its assets transfer to a town council. It would then be the responsibility of a town council to pay for storage, insurance, upkeep, repairs and any other costs associated with the collection.

As part of the proposed changes it is proposed to extend Eastfield Town Council boundary north east towards the A165 to become coterminous with the SBC Eastfield Ward and NYCC Eastfield Division, taking in a number of properties that are curerntly unparished.

It is also proposed to extend Newby & Scalby Town Council's boundary to become coterminous with the SBC Newby Ward and NYCC
Newby Division taking in the 12 unparished Charles Williams Apartments.

The plan would also extend Osgodby Parish boundary to include three properties currently outside of the parish, at the northern boundary line, and to become coterminous with the SBC Cayton Ward and NYCC Cayton Division.