Employing a town centre manager among the ideas to revitalise the high street

Scarborough Council last year set up a task group to look at how to bring investment and shoppers back to the town centre.

Speaking at a meeting of the council’s Overview and Scrutiny Board, the task group’s chairman, Cllr David Jeffels (Con), said that among the ideas was to employ a town centre manager to oversee the scheme.

He said the idea came out of two public meetings held with residents and businesses last year.

“The Government announced a scheme before Christmas called the Future High Streets Fund and hopefully we can make a bid for funding from that to take forward our ideas.

“One of the ideas is that we should have a town centre manager, we did have one a number of years ago and it did seem to be effective in encouraging new investment.

“There were also concerns about how we can bring residential living back to the town centre, above shops in particular.”

The appearance of the high street is also on the task group’s radar.

Other ideas to revive the town centre include making Scarborough a university town, boost the night-time economy and attract festivals. Plans also include improved connectivity through SMART town centre infrastructure.

Following the meeting, Cllr Jeffels said that the task group aimed to help create opportunities and encourage new investment in the town centre.

He told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “By enhancing the image of the main shopping areas with good environmental schemes and building on the enthusiasm and ideas which have already come forward from a wide range of organisations, I am sure we can enhance Scarborough’s image which in turn will provide new job opportunities by attracting more tourists and new investment by other potential employers.”

An interim report on the town centre strategy will come back to the Overview and Scrutiny Board in March.