Confidence in £50m bid to improve Scarborough and Whitby town centres

The Leader of Scarborough Borough Council says he is confident in other bids going through for Government money to improve town centres.

Author: Karen LiuPublished 15th Jan 2021

The Leader of Scarborough Borough Council says he is confident in other bids going through for Government money to improve town centres.

Two proposals were put forward and shortlisted for Scarborough and Whitby to get £25 million each from the Towns Fund.

It is after Scarborough lost out on £10 million from the Future High Streets Fund which local MP, Robert Goodwill, said was not strong enough.

Steve Siddons said:

"I don't really agree with that. I think that there is a fundamental problem with Government grants in that the Treasury get involved in this, but the way the Government look at delivering grants is through a value-for-money exercise.

"We will always lose out on that because land values in the North of England are not as good as they are in the South. So there was a plan by Government to assist with that and bring that target down, but they've not done it terribly well and they've not done it in a way that helps us.

"My view is that that was a good bid. It was supported by civil servants who worked with us to get that bid to the table and for whatever reason, the Government has decided that they weren't going to go with Scarborough.

"I have to say that if you look at the list of towns up and down the North of England who are bidding for the Towns Fund money as we are, the £50 million for Scarborough and Whitby, they've tended not to get the Future High Streets Fund money.

"I'm glad that Robert Goodwill is happy to work with us. He sits on both of our boards and he's been very supportive of these bids. So I hope that he will make sure that the Government are aware of how good those bids are, which I'm sure he will do. I'm quite confident that we're in with a really good chance of getting those two schemes through."

Hear all the latest news from across the UK on the hour, every hour, on Greatest Hits Radio on DAB, smartspeaker, at greatesthitsradio.co.uk, and on the Rayo app.