MP for Scarborough and Whitby urges mayor to deliver women’s refuge in area with ‘highest rate of abuse’
The Mayor of York and North Yorkshire has been urged to deliver a women’s refuge in an area with the ‘highest rate of reported domestic abuse’.
Scarborough has the highest rate of reported domestic abuse in North Yorkshire and urgently needs a women’s refuge, the town’s MP, Alison Hume, has said.
She is calling on David Skaith, the elected Mayor of York and North Yorkshire, to deliver a women’s refuge on the coast to allow her constituents to “move on from their isolating and traumatic experiences of domestic abuse”.
Speaking in Parliament this week, Ms Hume said: “In coastal communities such as mine in Scarborough and Whitby, we see persistently high levels of domestic abuse where victims and survivors are hidden and isolated. Scarborough has the highest rate of reported domestic abuse in North Yorkshire.
“A landmark report found that, on average, victims in rural areas, including North Yorkshire, were subject to abuse for 25 per cent longer and were half as likely to report it compared with victims in urban areas.”
The construction of a refuge for victims of domestic violence in Scarborough was given the go-ahead in June 2022, but more than four years later, the plan remains stalled.
In 2023, North Yorkshire Council said that “inflationary costs have impacted the scheme”, which was being developed by Beyond Housing, which also bought the site from the council.
During the 2024 general election campaign, Ms Hume said she would “ensure the women’s refuge in Scarborough is built and champion delivery of preventative work in schools”.
Referrals to the Independent Domestic Abuse Services in North Yorkshire, the largest charity supporting victims of domestic abuse and sexual violence in the county, have continued to rise, and in 2025, it received more than 20,000 referrals, compared to 18,000 in 2022.
Ms Hume recounted working on “countless heartbreaking cases on behalf of my constituents where women experiencing domestic abuse have been denied the support that they need”.
A constituent recently told the MP that she had contacted multiple organisations to try to get help so that she and her child could move away from her abuser, but the resident was told by organisations “there’s not much help we can give you”.
Another survivor wrote to the Labour MP to say she was homeless and paying to live with her three children in hotels.
Speaking in Parliament, Ms Hume added: “My constituents desperately want to move on from their isolating and traumatic experiences of domestic abuse.
“Sometimes, dispersed accommodation is the answer, and other times the answer is a refuge, but there is no refuge in the North Yorkshire council area, the largest county by area in England.
“I urge the York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority to deliver a women’s refuge on the coast.”