Hopes empty shops in Scarborough town centre gets filled to help boost economy
There are worries that Wilko might be empty for a while
We are hearing about what could be done to improve Scarborough town centre to help boost the economy.
There are worries with the rescue deal for Wilko collapsing that the large unit will become empty like a lot of other shops.
In July, the British Retail Consortium found 6-thousand shops across the UK have shut over the past five years due to rising business rates and the Covid pandemic.
Jo Thompson, Chair of Scarborough Business Ambassadors, said: "We've got a subgroup in the Scarborough Business Ambassadors that purely focusses on Scarborough town centre. It's about working with all the town centre stakeholders, including the council, to look to see how we can improve it by trying to attract bigger names, which is about demographics. We'd love to see a Primark in Scarborough, I think there's a market for that here.
"What we need to do is really look at how we can be a little bit more innovative and creative with filling the unit. We need to look to see how we can become less retail dependent but still give users of the town experiences to attract them into town and to become more vibrant.
"People tend to go away to shop, they go to York or Leeds or other towns and cities and I'm not saying that they're doing any better really as the high street's been impacted all over the country, but there's more choice in a bigger city. Personally I think Scarborough needs to bring independent traders into the town so it's more 'boutiquey'. There are several towns and cities that have had really good impacts with this.
"The council needs to be pivotal in tracking down the landlords of these vacant units. I just think there needs to be more negotation to see how we can really encourage private landlords to invest in improving their properties and renting them out again at affordable rates for all."